Allegory

[alice wellintown]

I agree.

Pynchon takes the advice of Hawthorne, the example of Melville too,
and it is the lattitude afforded one who writes American Romance.

WHEN A WRITER calls his work a romance, it need hardly be observed
that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and
material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume, had
he professed to be writing a novel. The latter form of composition is
presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible,
but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The
former--while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to
laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside
from the truth of the human heart--has fairly a right to present that
truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own
choosing or creation. If he think fit, also, he may so manage his
atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights, and deepen
and enrich the shadows, of the picture. He will be wise, no doubt, to
make a very moderate use of the privileges here stated, and,
especially, to mingle the marvellous rather as a slight, delicate, and
evanescent flavor, than as any portion of the actual substance of the
dish offered to the public. He can hardly be said, however, to commit
a literary crime, even if he disregard this caution.
http://www.eldritchpress.org/nh/sgpf.html


On 1/31/13, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> To answer this asked question re Lacey. No, Pynchon is not pure allegory
> like Animal Farm...
> He gives us all that overt attitude, " realism" , albeit hysterical most of
> time, gothic concoctions,
> Too-large-for-allegory symbols and so on.....
>
> But his fiction is still " encoded" as we understand allegory.
>
> Sent from my iPad