Cowart & how P avoids the postmodern problem with history (Fredric Jameson)

[Paul Nightingale]

The passage in question, beginning at the bottom of 22, refers to Pynchon's
apparent grounding in 'doctrines of realism' (Watt's The Rise of the Novel
was published in the late-50s) that go back to the C18th and are therefore
contemporaneous with Johnson's swing at a stone that might or might not have
resembled Berkeley. My view is that Watt should be read in the context of
early Williams and the early social history of, eg, Hobsbawm and Thompson:
rather than confirming the pre-eminence of a 'traditional' realism that owes
more to the late-C19th, Watt attempted to uncover messy beginnings that have
a lot in common with contemporary post-realisms. How far he did so
successfully is another matter. Johnson was 'proving' the existence of the
real world; unfortunately there are still a lot of Johnsons kicking stones
every time they hear the term postmodernism. The latter, as Cowart points
out, deals with representations of 'the real'; and Pynchon's 'often
hetero-historiographic narratives' simply deal with the way the real has
been represented at different times (see, eg, Cowart's earlier reference to
AtD on 20, issues discussed here on pynchon-l).

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of alice wellintown
Sent: 25 July 2012 19:10
To: pynchon -l
Subject: Cowart & how P avoids the postmodern problem with history (Fredric
Jameson)

speaking of misreadings, I must admit that I ca not follow Cowart here on
page 23 where he sets out to define or describe  how P devised a genre that
somehow fits into our postmodern realism. the allusion to johnson and
kicking a stone, as I read it, is Cowart;s own bit of
sophistry.   a rather critical point is muddled by the allusion.
anyone?