Thomas Pynchon's Magical Mystery Tour

[Robin Landseadel]

On Aug 1, 2009, at 5:51 AM, Dave Monroe wrote:

> http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1914149,00.html

	"Think George Carlin as Philip Marlowe and you're getting
	there."

Think of Thomas Pynchon as Philip Marlowe and you're much, much  
closer. I suspect Pynchon appreciates Chandler's economical  
specificity of description and his mordant tone:

	A shiny black bug with a pink head and pink spots on it crawled
	slowly along the polished top of Randall's desk and waved a
	couple of feelers around, as if testing the breeze for a takeoff. It
	wobbled a little as it crawled, like an old woman carrying too
	many parcels. A nameless dick sat at another desk and kept
	talking into an old-fashioned hushaphone telephone
	mouthpiece, so that his voice sounded like someone
	whispering in a tunnel. He talked with his eyes half closed, a
	big scarred hand on the desk in front of him holding a burning
	cigarette between the knuckles of the first and second fingers.

	The bug reached the end of Randall's desk and marched
	straight off into the air. It fell on its back on the floor, waved a
	few thin worn legs in the air feebly and then played dead.
	Nobody cared, so it began waving the legs again and finally
	struggled over on its face. It trundled slowly off into a comer
	towards nothing, going nowhere.

	Raymond Chandler—Farewell, My Lovely