Pynchon's back catalogue

[Mark Kohut]

see Emmanuel Wallerstein, I believe....The Modern World-System....maybe as
a gap-bridger?
back from TRP's early adult years........

many anti-colonialists see a World-System....

--- On Mon, 7/27/09, Rob Jackson <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:

> From: Rob Jackson <jbor at bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: Pynchon's back catalogue
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Monday, July 27, 2009, 7:55 PM
> On 28/07/2009, at 9:29 AM,
> pynchon-l-digest wrote:
> 
> > Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:35:11 +0200
> > From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>
> > Subject: RE: Pynchon's back catalogue
> > 
> > Rob Jackson:
> > 
> >> The idea of a "World Historical Project" as you've
> set it out is a
> >> somewhat Eurocentric approach, one which I'd argue
> is anathema to
> >> Pynchon's historical sensibilities as evidenced in
> both GR and M&D.
> > 
> > Well, sorry to be the one to break it to you, but the
> majority of GR,
> > a third of M&D and about half of AtD takes place
> in old Yurrup.
> 
> A third of M&D you say? So "America" (pp. 257-713) is
> Europe in your book? And the Chicago World Fair in AtD?
> Right-o.
> 
> ... And I'm not sure that I agree that "the Zone" in GR,
> let alone the majority of Part 4, is actually "Europe" in
> any real sense of a continuous or intact historical,
> cultural or social identity.
> 
> But my point is that the notion of a "World Historical
> Project" which you're putting forward is anathema to the
> historical sensibility revealed in the novels, which is
> always trying to get outside the Eurocentric worldview and
> present the course and consequences of history from the
> perspectives of the colonised and the oppressed, the
> minorities and the marginalised.
> 
> This is as true for Lot49 and VL as for the other novels,
> so your carve-up of the oeuvre, which places the three
> novels which are set more recently in the U.S. outside this
> so-called "World Historical Project", is a Eurocentric one,
> and one which ignores other, rather more important thematic
> continuities, in the works.
> 
> Essentially you're just classifying them into the longer
> texts and the shorter texts. Which is fine and dandy, but
> there are other ways of apprehending and appreciating the
> works.
> 
> all best
>