AtDTDA 24: Psychical Espionage 670/673

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

More Gems from OBA's intro to Stone Junction:

          Stone Junction's allegiance, however, is to the other 
          kind of magic, the real stuff -- long-practiced, all-out, 
          contrary-to-fact, capital M Magic, not as adventitious 
          spectacle, but as a pursued enterprise, in this very 
          world we're stuck with, continuing to give off readings
           -- analog indications -- of being abroad and at work, 
          somewhere out in it.

          The fatal temptation for a fiction writer who must 
          accept the presence, often a necessity, of magic 
          in his own work, is to solve difficulties of plot, character 
          and -- more often than is generally suspected -- taste, 
          by conveniently flourishing some prop, some ad hoc 
          amulet or drug, that will just take care of each 
          problem as it arises. Fortunately for us here, Jim 
          Dodge, by the terms of his calling, cannot indulge in 
          that particular luxury. Magic is in fact hard and 
          honorable work, and cannot be deployed at whim, 
          not without consequences.

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_stone.html