Cars

[Mark Kohut]

"As time goes on the technical problems become more automatic, while the people problems [of traffic] become more surrealsitic. ----Henry Barnes, legendary traffic commish of NYC, quoted in Traffic, 2008 by Tom Vanderbilt.

"We spend more on driving than on food or health care. As of the last census, there were more cars than citizens."---Traffic

"Time and space are skewed in traffic; our vision is fragmented and often unclear."---Traffic



--- On Thu, 10/22/09, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

> From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: Cars
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Thursday, October 22, 2009, 9:22 AM
> On Oct 22, 2009, at 6:10 AM, kelber at mindspring.com
> wrote:
> 
> > The movie reviewer-style referencing of movies and,
> perhaps, the used car-sellers referencing of cars, add a
> layer of pop-culture cheesiness (Velveetification?)to the
> story.  We're not getting the simple view of the
> omniscient narrator, we're getting the view filtered through
> a lens clouded by crappy pop culture.  The TV parodies
> are part of this.  Pynchon is using a filter of crappy
> culture, like fog moving in, to show us why the budding
> idealism of the 60s went under.
> 
> He's also demonstrating car lust and envy.
>