The Ampersand and the Capital

[Mark Kohut]

After catching up with more posts,[thanks Michael and Clement] and learning what filiation really means, [self-criticism,..etc.] I can see more reason to read more of these remarks----although I still think that that abstract neo-academic language is virtually self-parodic......

But that might just be me. I want to believe that the best insights into Pynchon's vision can be expressed in intelligent prose for the 'common reader', to use a neglected concept. 

As we mostly do it at the plist.

Later,

--- On Sun, 11/8/09, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: The Ampersand and the Capital
> To: malignd at aol.com
> Cc: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Sunday, November 8, 2009, 9:44 AM
> YEA!....Can't wait to read more
> self-fellatio....oops, I mean on linear (self-) "filiation",
> of course.
> 
> He could have had a simple, maybe real, insight, imho: text
> itself had more 'character' then.....
> 
> --- On Fri, 11/6/09, malignd at aol.com
> <malignd at aol.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > From: malignd at aol.com
> <malignd at aol.com>
> > Subject: Re: The Ampersand and the Capital
> > To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> > Date: Friday, November 6, 2009, 10:34 PM
> > <<In his historical novel Mason
> > & Dixon (1997), Thomas Pynchon uses the
> > very materiality of letters to convey some of his
> major
> > preoccupations,
> > and this in at least two ways. The ampersand on the
> cover
> > plays on the
> > opposition between curves and straight lines at the
> core of
> > the novel,
> > but also announces a deep interrogation on filiation
> which
> > climaxes at
> > the end of the book. The innumerable capital letters
> > unsettle the
> > rectilinear typography and, through the syntactic
> > ambiguities they
> > create, disrupt the very linearity of
> reading." >>
> > 
> > Oh boy; let's hear more from this guy ... particularly
> on
> > the deep interrogation on filiation which climaxes --
> > CLIMAXES! --- at the end of the book ...
> > 
> > 
> > -
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>       
> 
>