It's about music!

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

Or at least also about music ... One may see bigger themes in Pynchon 
--- "the century's master cabal" (V, p. 226), technology, "the fork in 
the road America never took" (GR, p. 556), or (since Vineland) family 
--- but music, though this is rarely analyzed by the academic 
Pyndustry,  plays a certain role in all of Pynchon's books ... And not 
just one genre of music, music in general ... There's an ongoing 
interest in classical music, from Stravinsky in V to Wagner and Puccini 
in Bleeding Edge, including, among other things, fictional Kazoo pieces 
from Vivaldi  (TCoL49, chapter 1) and Haydn (GR, p. 711) ... But also - 
from McClintic Sphere's saxophone playing in V over Ragtime in Against 
the Day to the HipHop culture in Bleeding Edge - in African American 
music ... Plus lots of other musical phenomena popping up in Pynchon's 
books ...  With Zoyd Wheeler we have, in addition to McClintic Sphere, 
another professional musician as male protagonist, here from Pynchon's 
second work phase ... And with Mucho Maas, who goes from DJ to record 
producer (and from acid to blow), there is a music related character as 
an indicator of cultural change connecting Pynchon 1 with Pynchon 2 ... 
Equally relevant: Pynchon's phrasing as a writer follows the musical 
criteria of flow, he's the auditive type of writer (- in contrary to 
more visually orientated authors like, for example, Ernst Jünger or 
Claude Simon) ... Especially obvious this becomes with the incorporation 
of songs into the novels, which is, on this world-literary level, as far 
as I can see unique ... What do the musicians on the list say? Is 
Pynchon - as one could perhaps say in analogy to formulations like  
'writer's writer' and 'musician's musician' - a, well, 'musician's 
writer?' Let me know! ... "The old man was singing, in a fine, firm 
baritone:/ Every night is Christmas Eve on old East Main,/ Sailors and 
their sweethearts all agree./ Neon signs of red and green/ Shine upon 
the friendly scene,/ Welcoming you in from off the sea./ Santa's bag is 
filled with all your dreams come true:/ Nickel beers that sparkle like 
champagne,/ Barmaids who all love to screw,/ All of them reminding you/ 
It's Christmas Eve on old East Main." (V, pp. 9-10) ... Cheers!


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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l