AtD--How Does It Fit/Great Global novels

[Paul Nightingale]

>>I think of V., GR, MD, and - based on the description - AtD as Pynchon's
attempts at writing The Great Global Novel.<<

For me, the key question in everything P has published is: how do we know
something/anything? So to refer to 'global novels' is to refer to the ways
in which we map reality (or attempt to). The historical transitions you
refer to are transitions in reality perhaps (it is, after all, changing
constantly) but also the writing of reality, the production of new texts to
represent reality differently (eg science rather than magic, Einstein rather
than Newton). If you can accept that, the distinction between 'global' and
'American' novels is less easily made. One is on better ground rejecting
COL49 and VL because they're not doorstops.

The blurb for AtD describes a kind of journey, from 1893 to post-WW1 taking
in New York, London and Gottingen, and many other 'places' along the way.
The Young Willis extract, as pastiche, indicates a possibility that such
places will include different kinds of writing, those defined as
low-cultural as well as those defined as high-cultural. My reading,
references to some of which have been posted to the list, has been based on
a simple question, one addressed consciously or otherwise by all writers:
what happens when we write about the end of the nineteenth century? The
historian or cultural commentator, in that respect, is no different from the
historical novelist (although they will, of course, obey the rules of
different genres). Some people have said they're not interested in
reading/talking about the period in question because the experience of
reading the novel will be, somehow, spoiled. This fear is based on the
notion that P will be primarily concerned with telling the reader about the
Chicago Fair and silent-era Hollywood etc. Such a fear is also based on the
notion that something called 'the past' is significantly different from
something called 'now'. However, we wouldn't ignore a novel about, say, the
2004 Olympics, or enjoy it any the less, because we already knew who won a
particular race. Again, I think these are issues addressed throughout P's
work.

All we can say with any (un?)certainty is that P will (or is likely to) have
shared some/many of the sources used by other writers (ie books in the
library and elsewhere). It's what he does with his sources that will be
interesting.