ATDTDA (3) Dynamitic mania, 80-86

[David Casseres]

Can't help thinking of the House of Atreus...

On 3/2/07, Chris Broderick <elsuperfantastico at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I'd say that a good part of the book is focused on
> Webb, and his family's various reactions to his
> murder.  It's not merely a question of temperment.
> His death affects many of the actions that his
> children take, for better and worse.  I'm not trying
> to reduce the book to some kind of a revenge tragedy,
> but it certainly has that lineage.
>
> Webb's death is certainly different than Slothrop's
> disappearance from the narrative of GR.  It's a much
> more literal act of disintegration than Slothrop's
> becoming a crossroads.  Slothrop might well have
> enacted a sort of escape from the curse of Infant
> Tyrone, but Webb hasn't escaped anything.
>
> -Chris
>
> --- Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> >
> > > One other thing that AtD shares with VL is the
> > focus
> > > on a character who is, for much of the book,
> > absent...
> >
> > > Similar to Slothrop, Webb becomes indistinct
> > > and quite literally fragmented, and the majority
> > of the
> > > reader's interaction with him as a character is
> > through other
> > > people.
> >
> > As Webb is dead by p. 198 of 1085 pp, isn't it a
> > stretch to say the book is
> > focused on him -- seances nothwithstanding?
> >
> > While I'd certainly agree that his temperament
> > *refracts* four ways into
> > those of his children, that's true of countless
> > family narratives. I don't
> > see much similarity to Slothrop's fragmentation.
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Cheap talk?
> Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates.
> http://voice.yahoo.com
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20070302/49916f69/attachment.html>