Review of BE in Bookforum

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

"Of course, Pynchon is famous for his complexity. /V./, /The Crying of 
Lot 49/ (1966), and /Gravity’s Rainbow/ (1973) virtually set the 
template for the paranoid style in American fiction, and for what’s 
semi-synonymously called the systems novel—vast interrogations in which 
character and plot get subsumed in grander architectures built to 
explain or exhaust various systems of control (political, technological, 
financial, chemical, etc.). Other high priests of this tendency include 
the stylistically diverse William Gaddis, Don DeLillo, and David Foster 
Wallace; /The Corrections/ has one foot in this tradition, as do many of 
William Gibson’s novels."

No, 'The Corrections' does not at all belong into this tradition; the 
novels of William S. Burroughs - especially those from 'Naked Lunch' to 
'Nova Express' - should have been mentioned instead.



On 03.09.2013 23:07, rich wrote:
> http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/020_03/12175
>
>
>             Sept/Oct/Nov 2013 <http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/020_03>
>
>
>   The Crying of West 79th Street
>
>
>   Reality comes undone in Thomas Pynchon's novel about New York in the
>   early aughts
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>       Ed Park
>
>