Pynchon & Joyce: What's similar and what's not/: Cowart's "Attenuated Postmodernism"

[Robin Landseadel]

On Feb 25, 2009, at 7:17 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:

>> With M&D and AtD this (and not only this) changed once more. So,  
>> are AtD and M&D
>> the "post-postmodern extravaganza" Cowart was dreaming of? And how  
>> would these books fit
>> into the Pynchon/Joyce-comparison?

I'm still reading "Wake', still confused and amused. Sensing that  
Against the Day was THE BIG ONE [word count, contents, scope and  
geographical territory under discussion] I saw relation to FINNEGANS  
WAKE in particular the treatment of world religions—a leitmotive I  
always pick up while reading WAKE. On the other hand, with Vineland  
Pynchon seemed to stop being concerned with fulfilling anybody's  
expectations. GR certainly fits the "Great American Novel" mode,  
everything that follows seems to be on its own crooked path.

Wake's a word salad the size of Mount Everest, Against the Day's an  
encyclopedic compendium of genre fictions.