Mendelson's View of P's 2ble Vision

[Fiona Shnapple]

That Flatiron Vision, what in art class and in math and physics class we
were taught is the two point perspective, and then vanishing point, and
then, of course, Infinity & Entropy, is, in literature an Encyclopedic
Vision, not merely in the sense that it is comprehensive, exhaustive if you
prefer, but in the sense that the narrative, while steroscopic in depth,
winks on either side of the V, like Kilroy, the band-pass-filter, so that
we are, as Mendelson says of the setting and context  of GR, in that
gestation period, that 9 months around the end of the Second Great War,
when contemporary history begins its life, and in the immediate present of
the readers, circa 1972. This double Vision allows the author  both a
prophetic and satirical Vision.

 [the differrences bewtween Anatomy, M-Satire, Encyclopedia have been much
discussed here, so...whatever].

Recent P scholarship has focused on the use of parody, the encylopedia of
 literary styles. This, of course, is what makes AGTD such a masterpiece,
one that we put on the top shelf next to Melville's grand encyclopedic
romances, M-D, C-M, and with Joyce etc.

Brian McHale has turned this to good effect in his essay "Genre as History:
Pynchon's Genre-Poaching," which offers a perceptive analysis of Pynchon's
incorporation of popular generic forms into his work.

https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/26/82
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