Misc. on "The Street" in Pynchon and elsewhere

[Mark Kohut]

Raymond Williams in the aforementioned book sez that
virtually all novels in the English (as a country) tradition 
were written about people in houses in (generally) settled communities
or rural areas........

Quoting a line from Wordsworth's The Prelude as transitional-----
which has the phrase "Overwhelming Streets" [his capping] where
he encounters people he sees partially...............

He then quotes Dickens on seeing aspects of people on his
London streets and elaborates on his work as the first in English
which fills whole novels with some people who see but never know
each other..............The Street  =  urban life...