ATDTDA - petroleurs, p.19

[David Morris]

On 1/30/07, Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Pynchon doesn't preach --  like all writers, he's god in his own creation. But like very few, he's really really good at it -- making *our* judgments about that world damn near as challenging and problematic as they are Out Here.
>
> For example, if you're at p. 380, I can suggest without spoilage that few things about the book are more interesting than the very different moral consequences for Webb and for Erlys of "being a bad parent." I mean, talk about "taking your living presence away" -- how 'bout falling in love with the magician and abandoning both your infant daughter and sweet solid Merle, who took you in when you were pregnant, and raises Dally alone quite splendidly? So now you and Dally are making friends, calmly talking it over as you fold bedsheets? This is the same book, the same author, the same moral *universe* as Webb's story? Well, yes -- and the fun is in figuring out how he pulls it off.

Right.  Thank God Pynchon doesn't preach.  He constructs moral and
emotional quandaries, and he relishes in dichotomies.   And then he
doubles and morphs then, as you point out.  BTW, the Erlys/Dally/Merle
Mom abandons child & husband is almost the same story he gave us in
Vineland, minus the treasonous and murderous aspect.

David Morris