Vineland: Nitpicking for a fight with wikipedia

[Henry]

I did a search of Pynchon Vineland on DeepDyve.com, and I found http://qix.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/12/5/865 

 

Does anyone have access to it?

 

And has does anyone have access to: Language and Literature, Vol. 12, No. 1, 27-41 (2003)

Pynchon, postmodernism and quantification: an empirical content analysis of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow 

Luc Herman 

University of Antwerp, Belgium 

Robert Hogenraad 

Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium 

Wim Van Mierlo 

University of London, UK 

Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (1973) has been received as a canonical instance of postmodernism. The novel appears to subvert traditional definitions of plot and characterization, yet the narrative retains a nagging sense of order underneath the represented chaos. Simultaneously evoking and undoing patterns on all levels of its narrative structure, Gravity's Rainbow surreptitiously evokes the presence of a night journey (Martindale, 1979). An empirical content analysis of the novel confirms this ambiguous attitude with respect to patterning in the novel, and thus constitutes a first and modest step towards the quantification of postmodernism. First, a thematic analysis, calculating the co-variations of words across the chapters, corroborates the idea of a connectedness that seems to belie, in part, the pervasive presence of a paranoid hermeneutic. Second, a dictionary-based analysis of narrative sequences reveals an inverse night journey pattern that differs markedly from other patterns found for modernist novels. The configurations that were obtained in these analyses show that content analysis can distinguish empirically between two literary - historical concepts. 

Henry Mu

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Mahnke
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 12:01 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Vineland: Nitpicking for a fight with wikipedia

 

 

Further to this, Google Book Search turns up Constructing Postmodernism, by Brian McHale (Routledge, 1992).  Chapter 5 is titled, "Zapping, the art of switching channels: on Vineland," and starts (p 115) with Zoyd leaping through the fake-real window.  Alas, but Google only lets me see the first two pages of the chapter.

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=KBxNCnpGB9IC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=vineland+zoyd+wheeler+window&source=web&ots=vmEh8sCfdS&sig=IsntZ4F57Jnz24mhjfH3e2OHlyQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result

 

-----Original Message-----

>From: Robert Mahnke <robert_mahnke at earthlink.net>

>Sent: Dec 1, 2008 10:53 AM

>To: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>, pynchon-l at waste.org

>Subject: Re: Vineland: Nitpicking for a fight with wikipedia

> 

> 

>In my mind at least, a key feature of post-modernist art is self-awareness and self-referentiality -- an acknowledgement of the artifice of the project. Viceland certainly goes there, starting with Zoyd's dive through a plate-glass window that isn't glass but candy, the better to simulate a dive through a glass window.  

> 

>-----Original Message-----

>>From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>

>>Sent: Dec 1, 2008 10:38 AM

>>To: pynchon-l at waste.org

>>Subject: Re: Vineland: Nitpicking for a fight with wikipedia

>> 

>>As a concept of a sequential period of time, post WW2 is mostly  

>>postmodern.

>>Try "Catch 22" and "Slaughterhouse 5". Then there's the notion of  

>>revisionist

>>history. The story we're sold is that "the sixties" was a time of  

>>social foment

>>and incredible drugs. "Vineland" shows the central importance of  

>>Television

>>and Television generated products: Fruit Loops, Count Chocula, "designer

>>water" and "Made for TV" movies. Vineland also flips all those tales  

>>we were

>>taught from the tube, demonstrating just how far "the man" got into our

>>subconscious via cop shows and their ilk.

>> 

>>In my mind, Postmodern is post-God, at least the version of God we  

>>were taught

>>in Sunday School. Some time during the last month I realized that  

>>"Wicca" really

>>is more like a form of Postmodern Mysticism. Most self-described  

>>Wiccans I've

>>encountered have a mish-mosh of belief systems. This is definitely  

>>reflected in

>>Vineland, with what seems like good old western magic getting all  

>>mixed up

>>with Buddhist and other oriental mystical philosophies.

>> 

>>On top of all that, Vineland often comes off as the biggest, wildest  

>>"Simpsons"

>>episode evah.

>> 

>>On Dec 1, 2008, at 7:00 AM, Dave Monroe wrote:

>> 

>>> On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 7:45 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>  

>>> wrote:

>>> 

>>>> Described as 'postmodern' in wikipedia listing.

>>>> 

>>>> How, besides that it was published AFTER modernism, does "Vineland"  

>>>> get called that?

>>> 

>>> See, e.g., ...

>>> 

>>> Totalizing Postmodernism: Master-narratives in Pynchon's Vineland

>>> By Bruce A. Sullivan

>>> 

>>> http://www.themodernword.com/Pynchon/papers_sullivan.html

>>> 

>>> On the other hand ...

>>> 

>>> Palmeri, Frank.

>>> Other than Postmodern?--Foucault, Pynchon, Hybridity, Ethics

>>> Postmodern Culture - Volume 12, Number 1, September 2001

>>> 

>>> http://www.muse.uq.edu.au/login?uri=/journals/pmc/ 

>>> v012/12.1palmeri.html

>>> 

>>> ... but do note that for Jean-François Lyotard, at least, that "post"

>>> isn't necessarily chronological.  St. Augustine was "ppsotmodern"

>>> according to JFL ...

>>> 

>> 

>> 

> 

>