IVIV (2) Help!

[kelber at mindspring.com]

There've been a number of posters who seem to agree with Tore that IV is, in a small sense at least, an autobiographical novel.  After all TRP lived in roughly this place at roughly this time and (for those who know the time/place) gets the details exactly right.  While Pynchon, like Doc, may have been stoned/tripping sometimes/often/always, and partaking of all the hedonistic opportunities available, it's impossible for me to read Doc as a Pynchon analog.  The important thing about Pynchon during this time in this place wasn't that he was as hedonistic as the next guy, but that he was writing the greatest novel of the 20th century [or fill in your own superlative].  Doc may share behaviors or attitudes with Pynchon, but I'd say he's merely a window into the conventional aspects of an otherwise genius.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>


>As has been pointed out a number of times already, IV feels like it draws
>heavily upon Pynchon's own experiences, and that makes it a very different
>text than his big historical novels (even though many of the characters
>and scenes in those books undoubtedly also draw upon his experiences, e.g.
>the scene in GR with Jessica pulling off her blouse in the car, if we are to 
>believe Jules Siegel). 
> 
>It's interesting to consider that GR was published roughly 28 years after the 
>action of the novel takes place, and it reads like a historical novel. IV was 
>published 39 years after the plot is set, and it doesn't read like a historical 
>novel at all. It reads more like a semi-autobiographical yarn of the kind
>old geezers are wont to tell. This particular old geezer tells it better
>than most, IMHO.