Prising some Character and Emotion out of Pynchon's Books

[Michael Bailey]

Campbel Morgan:
> Yes, and he is clearly an allusive character. But the game is kute
> because Pynchon does not have an audience that knows the "bible" or
> intertextuals or allusions that the character, in this case Benny,
> connects. That's the Stencil Game. And it's a cul-de-sac of history
> and books from the past that can not be recovered.
>

we know some of them and impute others; although "of making many books
there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh" - but the
continual refreshing of interest by the all-stops-pulled prose is an
example ("Sluggard, look to the ant!") and an inspiration.
"There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any
remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come
after?"  Pynchon is not the Domesday Book nor was meant to be, but now
with the Internet it's become easier to track down those quitclaims
and soccages in fief.

> That characters can be instructive even though they are heartless
> characters we can't care about seems a difficult argument to make, but
> I'll listen. That the novels, despite having heartless characters,
> have a didactic purpose, are satires, corrective satires with targets
> and advocate specific reform measures that should be implemented, is
> also a diffiuclt argument to make. But not impossible.
>

Maybe true, but that's not where I was headed.  There's the "lightest
burden", the "easiest yoke" of a moral: keep cool but care.  all kinds
of pointers to didactic content if you want it, of course, but it
takes a p-list to raise my interest in following up much of that
(thanks Messrs Yenamandra and Xymoron!  W.A.S.T.E. is still accepting
donations: http://waste.org/local/faq.html#about ) -- I'm talking
emotions aroused, sparkling centers under dim exteriors like geodes,
unpromising persons proving to be friends -
"reach out in the darkness, and you may find a friend..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_skTmcF5kY

"I believe" in Benny ("he's got the clear clean eyes of a seeker of
wisdom and truth") "because it's impossible" (or words to that effect)


-- 
"My God, I am fully in favor of a little leeway or the damnable jig is
up! " - Hapworth Glass