re Crying of Lot 49

[Mark Kohut]

Was recently reminded of Walter Benjamin's
very famous essay,
"The Work Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".

In which he argues, I oversimplify of course, that art
today is all copies.....

The text within The Crying of Lot 49 is a play, a
work of art (I guess we are to think?), which cannot
be 'known" for sure in its original form. ( I have also read about
trying to establish the proper text of Shakespeare's works.)

Because copies seem to change.

The essay ends with a Marinetti---Futurism---riff and we
remember him from Against the Day. And lotsa other good cultural,
historical shit
in the essay.

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