Pynchon mention in Jean Paul article

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

"Doch unermüdliche Jean-Paul-Enthusiasten, ihrerseits weidlich 
überfordert und genervt, geben nicht Ruhe und provozieren dauernd wieder 
mit der lustvollen These, dass Jean Paul poetisch-philosophisch mehr 
draufhabe als Dante, Goethe, Kant, Kafka und Pynchon und dass er vier 
Geistestypen, die sich eigentlich total ausschließen, in sich stimmig 
und höchstkarätig synthetisiert: Denker, Gefühlstyp, Satiriker, 
Mystiker." (Ulrich Holbein: Wir lieben ihn auch auf Bierdeckeln, FAZ, 
3/6/13, p. 29)

Well, the referred claim of Jean Paul freaks that their author has more 
poetic and philosophical skills than "Dante, Goethe, Kant, Kafka und 
Pynchon" judges itself, but it nevertheless might make sense to read 
Jean Paul in a Pynchonian context. Myself I actually never did.

His novella /Des Luftschiffers Giannozzo Seebuch/ (Erzählung im 2. 
Anhangsbändchen zu Titan, 1801) about a balloonist can be considered as 
a forerunner of /Against the Day/.

And the following characterization of Jean Paul's style from the 
Encyclopedia Americana of 1920 sounds familiar to us, no?

"His style is perhaps one of the most barbarous and his books are quite 
without structure. His humor, however, is genuine, though frequently 
clumsy. He affected boldly to despise all literary proportion and 
technique and is recompensed by having the bulk of his work pronounced 
difficult or unreadable."

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Encyclopedia_Americana_%281920%29/Richter,_Johann_Paul_Friedrich

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