gang's all here
Doug Millison
dougmillison at comcast.net
Fri May 22 01:20:51 CDT 2009
Too many familiar names to remain a lurker longer.
Great to see Hollander's work getting some long-overdue attention. The
Dude's work is interesting, worth reading and pondering, and always
has been, except in the opinion of a couple of specific individuals
here on Pynchon-L. Whatever anybody has to say about Hollander's
attitude or larger claims, serious Pynchon readers invariably find his
articles helpful and thought-provoking. Hollander has read Pynchon
closely and has done an enormous amount of research on references and
allusions in Pynchon's books. Plus he's a great guy that any of you
regular p-listers would love to have a drink and talk Pynchon with.
I didn't know he'd had actual correspondence with Thomas Pynchon.
Funny to read the remarks of some readers who would protest loud and
long if you offered an interpretation of a Pynchon text as specific as
they have done for Pynchon's Reply to Hollander which I find more
enigmatic than anything else. I remain impressed that Hollander got a
direct answer back in the first place. I know 2 people who have heard
back from Melanie Jackson speaking on behalf of Thomas Pynchon, but
Hollander is the first person I've known to receive a letter
handwritten by Pynchon. My sense is that not many Pynchon scholars
have had that pleasure.
I'm taking another run at Against the Day, I read the first 400 pages
or so when it first came out, then set it aside when I got involved in
the project I'm just now finishing up. I plan to read it before
Inherent Vice comes out this summer.
I've also been re-reading McLuhan's Understanding Media: The
Extensions of Man, as backround prep for another project. Any serious
Pynchon reader would enjoy reading that and The Gutenberg Galaxy,
which I also recently re-read. I found myself copying out many
passages that had something to say about things that I like in
Pynchon's books - many echoes and reverberations in what McLuhan was
writing back in that day. Here's a passage I noted the other day:
"…the mathematical Leibniz saw in the mystical elegance of the binary
system of zero and 1 the image of Creation. The unity of the Supreme
Being operating in the void by binary function would, he felt, suffice
to make all beings from the void."
--Understanding Media, p. 111, 1966 Signet paperback
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