Back to AtD. Echo aforehand

[Monte Davis]

Just as the central Rocket and the offstage-but-central Bomb in GR will
combine after 1945 to shape the era of Richard M. Zhlubb: begin with one
city trying hard not to think about where the next one will land, end with
three continents in the movie house.

One of the greatest pleasures in the Divine Comedy is how Dante plays with
foreshadowing events between Easter, 1300 (when his journey ostensibly takes
place) and publication in 1314-1321. Of course writers had played similarly
"prophetic" tricks since antiquity. But Dante really raised the level of
play among multiple flavors of time-based dramatic irony: what denizens of
Hell and Purgatory know, what Dante-as-character "knew," what
Dante-as-author knows, what readers know, what God knew all along (although
I guess omniscient deities are immune from/to irony).

One of the reasons I admire Pynchon so -- and am convinced he knows his
Dante -- is that he raises the game again: e.g. the way that Mason & Dixon
are just two surveyors in the 1760s, but we can't even see the title without
thinking of the war to come a century later. It's fruitful to consider all
but CoL49 to be historical novels (even for the shortest time lapses of V.
and Vineland) in the sense that they support so many such ironies within
themselves, and even more across P's career: I mean, a good chunk of V. is
anxiety about "the balloon going up, " and then comes p. 1 of AtD....
      

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Matthew Cissell
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 9:55 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Back to AtD. Echo aforehand

A sense of heavy foreboding builds towards the end of the book and the
horror of WWI is passed over in near silence to let the greater horror of
WWII lay just beyond the book's time and space. This leaves the reader to
think of what waits ahead for the cast of characters but also what the near
future may bring to those of us reading in the here and now that looks
evermore like Desolation Row.

mc
ps. thanks to those who have offered suggestions about the map idea.

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Cc: 
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 3:37 PM
Subject: Back to AtD. Echo aforehand

p. 936..... a 'cross-hatched map' with 'certain disagreeable events
attributed to Germany' including 'probably' the placement of 'land
mines'........

alludes to GR, of course, this time with a foretelling the near future
aspect--as much of AtD does.