Target city and greenhouse

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Am 18.03.2016 um 16:22 schrieb Monte Davis:

> http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/can-dostoevsky-still-kick-you-in-the-gut
>
> I take it as given that P. knew his Dostoyevsky, and that both the glass
> breaking overhead (while Pirate/the bombed/Jews/all preterites fail to
> escape *far below*) and the maybe-about-to-break glass of the *sky-lit,
> rooftop* greenhouse are deliberate remappings of the spaces in "Notes
> from the Underground."


"Notes from the Underground" is a favourite book.

A very fine article by Denby:

"What if our own interest, as we construe it, consists of refusing what 
others want of us? That motive can’t be measured. It can’t even be 
known, except by novelists like Dostoevsky. Reason is only one part of 
our temperament, the underground man says. Individualism as a value 
includes the right to screw yourself up."

Of course, the underground man not only "says" it. He rants -- and 
beneath the rant he screams, kicks and punches -- against rationalism.

In the course of it he invents modern man.

Similar psychological insights can be found in Poe. The only writer of 
that period comparable to Dostoevsky, however, for me is Melville.

Certainly Michel Houellebecq knows "Notes from the Underground" by heart.

As regards the link to GR via the Crystal Palace, I have to admit that I 
never made the connection. Thanks.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l