Fathers , Sons, Daughters & Hearts R Diamonds

[Campbel Morgan]

The formulas are fairly simple. Way back in his Short Stories Pynchon
introduces the father son conflict (smart and progressive lad vs. the
old man). It's Grover and his old man. These male genration-gap
conflicts are quite complex when P delves into the cultural and
politcal happenings; the All in the Family Meatheads and Glorias (SDS
& CO,) vs. the Archie and Edith working class hardhats, on race, war,
work, education, technolgy ....but it's a formula that has flaws, even
in M&D.

The mother who has left the family formula is also tried and true.
Consider The Road.

Same kinda formula. Man and Child (Son); Mom has abandoned them.
But McCarthy's characters have hearts; real beating hearts that make
our hearts pound.
The photograph left in the ashes.
The questions the boy asks.
The answers the man gives.
The descriptions.
The acts.
 The dreams and thoguhts and feelings.

Characterization; say, think/feel, act/fail to act, description
(direct, from reflectors, narrators, narrator-characters & so on....

Isn't this one of the reasons females don't much love Pynchon as much as males?

He doesn't do characters with hearts. Death of the character with a heart.

Just finsihed the complete works of Jhumpa Laheri; I love to read
Edith Wharton. Jane Austen is just diamonds in my mind (the spider
spinning the web as Nabokov says). George Eliot is sooo sweet...can't
get enough. Reading Toni Morrison's latest.

Maybe I just want a heart in a character.

As luck with have it, hearts are back in style.