Pynchon's back catalogue

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Rob Jackson:

> Not sure why you'd leave out V. from this "global" set of texts. 
 
As I said in my original mail: V. was written before Pynchon really came 
of age as a writer, and in many ways he cut his teeth on that novel. Later, 
I think he conceived what we could call his World Historical Project - those
three or four novels he mentioned in a letter to Candida Donadio in 1964 or so - 
but V. was written before that idea materialized. I am of course just guessing 
here, and of course V. shares traits with the Big Three, but for the reasons
stated in my original mail:
 
http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0810&msg=129436&sort=date
 
- a setting around a world-historical cusp, huge scope, structural similarities, 
density of scientific and historical references, etc. etc. - 
GR, M&D and AtD surely read to me like part of a coherent encyclopedic/historical
project. All of Pynchon's other novels have points in common with the novels in the
global trilogy, but they don't share their vast ambition (and they don't have any
Bodines, except V., which is a special case...).

> What of the history of Thurn and Taxis in Lot 49? The Godzilla and yakuza
> sections in VL? 
 
Again, on a whole other level than what we get in GR, M&D and AtD. One would
hardly call a few popcultural references to Godzilla and the yakuza 'global history'.
 
> And AtD is more like V. redux than a component of any sort of coherent trilogy.

I respectfully disagree, for reasons stated above and in my original mail. We can discuss
whether Pynchon succeeds at what he is attempting in AtD (and I think both GR and M&D are
much more succesful), but we can't really doubt the scope of his ambition in AtD, which 
conceptually, historically and thematically fits perfectly in the gap between M&D and GR.
 
Tore
 
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