COL49: Why the Negativity, TRP?

[Robin Landseadel]

On Jul 19, 2010, at 7:35 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:

> this is why I love this list.

Alice is Stencil, more engaged in the past than the present. I am  
Benny, a Schlemiel's schlemiel, rootlessly yo-yo-ing up and down the  
California coast.

If the California books are pure crap, then allow me a bit of  
Scatoscopy. Somehow the fictional California towns that Pynchon places  
these stories are all fully operational in my own life. Call it  
projection all you like, Pynchon is describing particular places,  
particular times and he's quite accurate. If you've ever been there,  
you would be in on the joke. I sure there's more than a touch of  
autobiography in Doc 'n' Zoyd's wake 'n' bake lifestyles. Similarly,  
an eye for the locales of various CIA/FBI projects scattered around  
California in ways large and small touched on the young author's life,  
occupations & preoccupations.

Of course, when it comes to the scatological, hardly anything can even  
get close to Gravity's Rainbow.