IVIV (1) "autobiographical"?

[Doug Millison]

I like these 2 approaches, plus the way Robin put it in a good recent  
post, too.

> Heikki:
> Let us imagine that IV is autobiographical to some degree.
> Could Doc's compromised past in his profession be comparable
> to Pynchon's period as a "writer" at Boeing?
>


> Mark the K:
> In a late life novel, J.M Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year, the semi- 
> autobiographical protagonist reflects on a late Tolstoy work:  
> Everyone says it is not so good because it presents its meanings so  
> baldly--telling rather than showing, [in that simplistic division.]
>
> He then asks how must the novel have appeared to Tolstoy himself.
> His answer: a simpler, clearer expression of his deepest themes.
>
> That's one way I am trying to read and gloss Inherent Vice.