Pynchon's endings

[Daniel Harper]

On Monday 26 March 2007 08:07, you wrote:
> Do you feel as I do...that he worked on ATD Most of his life?....
>

I'm in progress in reading M&D, but given that there's a very similar if not 
identical shade of meaning to uses of "the day" in M&D, I'd guess that he's 
been working on ATD at least since 1996 or 1997. 

Given that he's only published three books since 1973, and one of those was 
the relatively short and non-"epic" Vineland (not to denigrate it at all), 
it's certainly possible that he's been doing research and doing at least 
vague work on the other two since the original publication of GR. 

Although I think it's possible to take this sort of thing too far. Even if we 
assume that he didn't start ATD until he was done with M&D, that's still 
_nine years_ in which to do the appropriate research and writing. That's 
enough time for someone to enter college and get an undergraduate degree, 
master's, and possibly even a PhD (depending on the field). If a bright but 
ignorant eighteen year old can become a PhD physicist in nine years, I'd 
imagine that Pynchon could write ATD in a similar amount of time.

Maybe we should just call ATD "the dissertation". Heh.

-- 
No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.
--Daniel Harper
countermonkey.blogspot.com