Pynchon's vaunted list-making

[Mark Kohut]

Farina has a LOT of lists in his shorter novel....mostly a kind of impasto 'realism'...piles up the nouns to indicate much
about a person, situation.    Not as witty as P's. 

From: Lemuel Underwing <luunderwing at gmail.com>
To: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> 
Cc: Andreis Passarinho <eastcocker at gmail.com>; Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com>; Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>; Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Sunday, May 5, 2013 7:01 PM
Subject: Re: Pynchon's vaunted list-making



Hmm I'd say far from a random collection of items on a desk...
for example, as I was just reading in AtD, how the whole Prairie extends around Merle and Dally as the Spokes of their Wagon-Wheel.. tho really there are too many Listing Moments to count in AtD

P.'s lists are enlargements of the scene, sometimes interrupting the narrative to follow otherwise Obscure characters, sometimes giving us what may only be misdirection or white noise,  other times offering glimpses of the expansive themes in different latitudes... they are, at their best quite masterfully worked... worthy of the greatest list-maker in the 'Merican language Walt Whitman




On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 12:53 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

or is it just a random collection of items on a desk
>
>
>On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Andreis Passarinho <eastcocker at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> i think theres something to that effect happening in GR, towards the end.
>> the events grouped paranoically and encyclopedically to relate to vast,
>> perverse power systems which we cannot fundamentally know about, and yet
>> have to try to make sense of.
>>
>> (hopefully at least 30% of this makes sense)
>>
>> -
>> andreisp
>>
>
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