Pynchon's misdirection

[Joseph Hutchison]

Gotta agree with you, Tore. Whatever Pynchon¹s up to, it¹s not locating the
³truth² outside the particular fiction. Commentators like Hollander who make
leaps such as the one from Varo to Varro without justifying it in the text
are doing a disservice to TRP. For example, there are all kinds of meanings
for the word ³Maas,² some that bear on CofL49 and some that plainly don¹t.
Among those that don¹t:

* ³Maas² means ³soured milk² in South Africa
* MAAS is an acronym for several things, including Maastrich Aging Study,
Maharashtra Association of Anthropological Sciences, Meet and Assist System,
and Mobile Aircraft Arresting System.

Even when a connection might potentially apply‹such as MAAS being an acronym
for Multicast Address Allocation Server‹it¹s incumbent on the critic to ask
whether such a server existed in 1966.

Joe


on 1/28/07 2:47 AM, Tore Rye Andersen at torerye at hotmail.com wrote:

> To imply, like Hollander
> does, that he has 'decoded' Pynchon and found the true meaning that a
> literal-minded poor sucker like me can't see, seems arrogant to me.
> Hollander puts himself in the company of Elect readers, leaving preterite
> readers in the dust, but he does so by piling tenuous connection upon
> tenuous connection. It *is* a subtle game Pynchon plays", as you put it, but
> part of the subtlety is knowing when to stop.


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