Pynchon/Roth/Bellow/Updike on the 1960s

[Mark Kohut]

Hey, I'm not sure either......Yes, I like your 'take'.....

So, in the context of Lit Critics who want Full [Round] characters,
is this vision of Pynchon's a way to say: to be "fully human" in WW2
[the modern age], we must transcend our quotidian reality?....
We seem to agree that it is an imaginative brilliancy in GR---how
do Lit Critics bound with some kind of 'realism' understand it? 

We must lose ourselves to find ourselves, as the religious phrase goes?

So, Pynchon embodies this with Slothrop in GR whereas another writer
might jst try to create a kind of saint on the page? (as TRP might have been 
trying to do with Cyprian in AtD?)



----- Original Message ----
From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com>; pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 10:26:37 AM
Subject: Re: Pynchon/Roth/Bellow/Updike on the 1960s

I'm not sure what you mean by "Pynchon embedding his vision of lost
humanity."  I've never thought of Slothrops fading away in GR as
negative per se.  Slothop becomes Mr. Natural, naked and bearded, and
he becomes the cross, a mandala.  In essence Slothrop achieves
nirvana, transcendence, and he literally becomes spread across the
Universe.  It's a happy ending for him.  The sadness is that those
around him lose sight of him, and forget him.

At least that's one take on it.

David Morris

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Later thots: Slothrop 'disappears' in GR, as we know.....Pynchon embedding his vision of lost humanity right there?  What a brilliant way to say Realistic Roundness is no longer the modern point?