BE as P's attempt at Greek New Comedy

[Fiona Shnapple]

John, I'd like to respond, but you lost me, so, if you don't mind, some
basic questions:

What is the old Greek comedy? What is the new Greek comedy?
What is a Coover take?
What is close third person?  I looked this last one up and was not
convinced that the definition provided is what you have in mind.


On Monday, October 7, 2013, John Bailey wrote:

> I'm increasingly wondering if the new novel isn't Pynchon's conscious
> attempt to write a New Comedy, in contrast to the Old Comedy that most
> of his work can be aligned with. Or, if we're going to get more
> detailed, with the Menippean Satire that some have convincingly argued
> is his forte. But I'm sticking with the Old/New divide of the Greeks
> for the moment.
>
> It would perhaps explain why this one jars so much for so many. It's
> sitcom, not systems analysis, and when it gives us types (Jewish
> American, African American, Italian American) it doesn't do so in the
> obviously ironic way his earlier works did. It doesn't give us the
> linguistic miracles that offer a way out of the existential morass in
> the manner we're used to P providing. It tries to offer characters
> we're supposed to care for, which is antithetical to Old Comedy, even
> if that mode is a more compassionate one on a structural level. BE
> leaves us with mere people, individuals, not even a hint of the
> preterite, which is interesting and a problem.
>
> A Coover take on 2001-02 would look more like what we could have
> expected from Bleeding Edge.
>
> Why, in both IV and BE, has Pynchon returned to close third person
> narration (with at least one exception in BE that I've noticed?) It's
> not What He Does. Not even in Vineland. He toyed with it in COL49 but
> then declared it a minor work. Why go back there?
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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