Why not do a group read of THE great American novel? Moby-Dick?

[alice malice]

Only problem is with the idea of the great American novel, a concept
that has, if nothing else, made for pulp and grist to/for/from the
mill, but it's difficult to dismiss Melville's great white whale as
candidate, and for Pynchon fans, in the world of great books,
Moby-Dick or The Whale is a great influence. The common whiteness
theme alone needs further development, and, as Melville's monstrosity
gained critical mass when the excesses of market capitalism capsized
the nation and the world's economy, it's seem a revisiting Melville
now makes much ado of something, though what that something is has yet
to be defined, though some will name it and paint it in clear shades
of blackness, it seems so  like the mysterious whale itself that
smashes down on the masts of industry and greed, then suck all down in
a Vortex to the bottomless perdition where God's foot weaves the
tapestry, the mantle of Varo's Earth.
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l