Creeping Figs

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I don't think that the dreaming/waking up sequence in GR fits in with the prosaic wakes-up-makes-a-cup-of-coffee-gets-dressed-for-work type stuff new writers are steered away from.  It's not obvious it's a dream sequence from the beginning, the allusions in it run much deeper than those of a typical dream sequence, and the circumstances Pirate wakes to are hardly of the another-day-in-the-life variety.  

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Chris Broderick <elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Sep 18, 2006 11:58 AM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: Creeping Figs
>
>What strikes me about this first sentence is that this
>is the second book in a row by Pynchon that begins
>with a character waking up, something that is
>discouraged in writing workshops everywhere, for good
>reasons.  Nevertheless, they both work.
>
>Pirate's transition from sleep to waking is much more
>abrupt than Zoyd's, and of course, more dream haunted.
> I too read that first sentence of VL as Zoyd drifting
>through sunlight as he awoke.  A rather more pastoral
>image than the immanent disasters of GR's opening
>pages.  Which prefigures the rest of the book nicely.
>
>-Chris
>
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