BtZ42 those lists; Slothrop's desk. And Naughty Slothrop.

[Mark Kohut]

Slothrop's desk reminds many of us. doesn't it, of all of
the human detritus Mucho sez he finds in cars.

There and in the list of new perceptions that Oedipa has
under the overpass in Lot 49, might be where P's list start.
Do they stick out, are they there in V? Rereading that one and
there is a list of four items in one early paragraph. Feels like training
wheels, lol.

Pynchon is not a 'realistic' writer, in the usual, novelistic, Woodian
meanings
of that term. Wood says the novel must be in touch with the world OR ELSE.
We all believe here that P is, discussing strenously how he is.

I have occasionally thought that P was sorta smilingly joking about
'realism'
in fiction with his lists. Sorta, you want realism, here it all is as
compressed
as diamonds.

In a recent literary essay by Mark Schorer, I learn or I am reminded, that
back
at the beginning of the novel with Defoe, there were lists. Defoe, a
'realist'
fer sure.


& Naughty Slothrop. p. 20 "a naughty version of Silent Night"......

That is, perhaps, as the Pulitzer Board felt (but not about this line
itself, I would think),
 almost obscenely sacrilegious as this Holy Christian Song was THE ONE which
stopped war for a day in WW1. At least one whole book about this
in English. In German?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20160404/921cb580/attachment.html>