who to bring in the ring

[Monte Davis]

AW> a world made up. Not connected to any one we know.

 

And so, for example, in Ada he certainly wouldn't create dozens of
linguistic and narrative and anagrammatic clues to when and how Antiterra/
Demonia, Estoty and Tartary diverged from our Earth, North America and
Russia/USSR..? It must have been those meddlesome copy editors who put them
in. I'll bet Vera  had the devil of a time calming him down when he
discovered them. 


In the same lecture
<http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/goodre.html> , Nabokov
says "A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a
rereader." Should some of the rereadings (often the first) be
"non-referential"? For sure - especially where the words and sentences and
scenes yield immediate, abundant aesthetic pleasure without cognitive
fiddling. 


But to rule out tout court connections to the world we know? Srsly, dude.
When I. A. Richards deliberately decontextualized poems and pared away stock
responses and doctrinal adhesions, it was interesting, useful. and limited.
When Derrida said "There is nothing outside the text," it was interesting,
useful. and limited. Your version. well, you've certainly got the "limited"
part down cold.


 

 

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of alice wellintown
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2013 11:26 PM
To: pynchon -l
Subject: who to bring in the ring

 

It suggests that it might help Pynchon readers to bring to the books not
just some Heidegger and Ellul and good ol' Norman O. Brown, but maybe some
Newton, Liebig, James Clerk Maxwell, von Braun, Norbert Wiener - and yes,
even Tesla.

 

It might hurt too. Nabokov's famous Lecture on reading and writing is useful
here. He has a point. That it makes sense to read a work of fiction as a
world made up. Not connected to any we know. Once done, sure, it might help
to know who Newton is and what he is famous for etc. 

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