does AtD stone world?

[Paul Mackin]

On Jul 11, 2007, at 10:52 AM, robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:

> So, like Keith posts:
>
>        On Jul 10, 2007, at 7:38 AM, Dave Monroe wrote:
>
>        It's like complaining that Jesus ain't no God.
> -----------------------------------------------
>
>        This line of thought could bring some clarity to the various
>        viewpoints re: the GR/AtD relationship.
>
>        Is AtD
>
>        (a) homoousian   (of same substance and essence)
>        (b) homoiousian  (of similar, but not identical substance/ 
> essence)
>        (c) homoian      (similar but distinctly inferior)
>        or
>        (d) heteroousian (different substance/essence)
>
>        vis-à-vis GR?
>
> With AtD, most everything is swimming under the surface. GR wears  
> its poetry
> on its sleeve, AtD constantly lulls you into thinking you're in a  
> more prosaic
> narrative, while in fact many more polyphonic threads are woven  
> into this
> composition. I suspect that a surface reading of AtD would result in
> dissapointment, a deep reading affords a particular type of  
> amazement not
> possible in [the ultimately nihilistic] Gravity's Rainbow. There is  
> more hope
> [for the future] and faith [in people] in Pynchon's writings after  
> Gravity's
> Rainbow. As OBA points out in "Slow Learner", the motivations of  
> characters
> ultimately should do more to drive a story than some hyped-up  
> metaphor, and
> somehow the folks in AtD are a bit more 'real' [whatever the hell  
> that means]


What it used to mean I think is that we CARE about them, what happens  
to them . . .

An old-fashioned kind of satisfaction readers pretty well have to  
renounce in  order to appreciate Pynchon.

It may be, as Duffy (think that's what people call him) says, AtD is  
(more) character-driven, by which one usually means that
characters interact with each other psychologically

Say, the way Lake interacts with Deuce.
That  interaction is masterfully portrayed, but it's hard  
(impossible) to care very much whether these two,
or a host of other examples, succeed or fail.


P





> than the folks in GR. I'd point to a density of storytelling and  
> description in
> AtD greater than that of GR. AtD includes the set of GR (and V., and
> 49. . . .), but is greater than the set of GR. They are made of the  
> same
> substance, but there's more going on in AtD.