AtD--How Does it Fit/Great Global Novels

[Tore Rye Andersen]

>Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 09:17:02 -0700 (PDT)
>From: pynchonoid <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: AtD--How Does it Fit/Great Global Novels
>


>One Big Novel - it's easier to deal with that way. P's
>concerns have been BOTH global AND American from the
>beginning it seems to me.

>I don't understand leaving Vineland out of the triads
>or quartets, either....

You are, of course, right: we're probably doing Pynchon a disservice by 
imposing lines and divisions on his work (the literary equivalent to drawing 
a line between Maryland form Pennsylvania/inflicting a sword-slash upon the 
Dragon's very Flesh: Terrible Feng-Shui, very harmful to Sha!). It's a fun 
parlor game, though, and it leads us to reflect on the common traits and 
differences between Pynchon's novels. Vineland certainly does connect nicely 
to Pynchon's other novels (to GR via Takeshi, to Lot 49 via Mucho, to MD via 
Vineland the Good), and I think the novel is vastly underrated (the prose is 
very often beautiful, for instance). Global/Japanese references 
notwithstanding, there are, however, undoubted differences in scope between 
e.g. Vineland and GR, or between Lot 49 and MD, and it makes sense to think 
about these differences, IMHO. One way of thinking about them is to create 
smaller constellations within Pynchon's work. These constellations are not 
objectively true, but they can be helpful (and I do find them fun).