The 'Waste' Law | Pynchon's genealogical influences

[Clément Lévy]

I agree with you: your hypothesis sounds very good.

I'd also note that Pynchon is fascinated by picture (recording  
memories?). He prevents pictures of himself to be published, but  
photography and cinema are present all through his works. Recently  
someone posted about AtD 613 where appears again this "tiny German  
hand camera" which reminds us at least the "German camera" Pirate  
promised to his pal in exchange for the banana trees (GR 6), or Teddy  
Bloat's own "tiny camera" (GR 17). This insistance is all the more  
obvious as these small German cameras were not sold to the public  
before 1923. So P mentions them even if they do not exist at the time  
of his story in AtD.
They could be the first ones to be working with 35 mm films (no more  
glass plates–that's why they are so small, light and easy to use. See  
what Merle Rideout thinks of the Kodak Brownie, compared to the glass- 
plates cameras) ie with cinematographic film. They were issued not  
prior to 1925 by Leitz, an optical firm (there was that Ur-Leica, as  
they call it, a prototype that was used around 1914 by a few members  
of the team, and among them Oskar Barnack, the founder of this Leica  
brand in 1924). See:
http://www.leica-camera.de/culture/history/oskar_barnack/
And one of these cameras was sold (about half a million dollar,  
making it the most expensive camera ever) at an auction in Vienna  
last week. This one had been produced in 1923 to test the market.  
Here's the link to an article from an Austrian newspaper (with photos  
of the camera):
http://www.kurier.at/nachrichten/techno/121751.php
Well, I'd be happy to bet my 2 cents that "Pynchon loves cameras" (as  
his characters says in the first Simpsons episode where he makes a  
cameo), and that he took pictures with one of those mythical Leica  
cameras.
The absolute phantasm of a Pynchon fan: browsing through his beloved  
author's family albums?

Sorry Daniel, I took an excursus from your point on Pynchon's  
genealogy, towards photography, the missing link could be at Roland  
Barthes' La Chambre claire? I forgot much of it… I should have a look  
at this book again. Family history and photos are strongly related, I  
guess.

All the best,
Clément

Le 21 nov. 07 à 15:15, Daniel Harper a écrit :

> In other words (and I've touched on this before in slightly different
> contexts), I think that the whole reason P doesn't give interviews,
> etc., is that he wants his works to stand as themselves, without the
> biographical lit-crit that was so common in decades past (and still
> has a certain cachet today). So while the family history stuff may be
> relevant to understanding _P_, I think it's almost antithetical to
> understanding _P's works_, at least as he intended them to be read.