Sorry, I missed a word while typing down the (second) Ickstadt quote!
Correctly the sentence goes like this:
"Pynchon - dessen Fähigkeit, den mathematischen Umgang mit dem
Unendlichen *metaphorisch* zu erschließen, an Musil denken lässt - ..."
(emphasis added)
On 26.03.2016 11:31, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
> The assumption is there for a long time. On the back cover of the very
> first book in Germany about Pynchon --- Heinz Ickstadt (ed.): "Ordnung
> und Entropie. Zum Romanwerk von Thomas Pynchon" from 1981 ---, which
> got published when the German edition of GR ("Die Enden der Parabel")
> appeared, it says: "Thomas Pynchon verbindet die obszöne
> Sprachphantasmagorie William Burroughs' mit der Musilschen
> Leidenschaft für die Mathematik des Unendlichen". This sentence was
> likely written by Ickstadt himself (in his essay on CoL49, pp.
> 104-125, here 121, it says again "Pynchon - dessen Fähigkeit, den
> mathematischen Umgang mit dem Unendlichen zu erschließen, an Musil
> denken lässt - ...", yes, in Vineland we even find an explicit Musil
> reference), whose introduction ("Einleitung", pp. 7-15) dates from
> June 1979. But I cannot remember having ever read something
> substantial on the issue. Nothing like, let's say, "Burroughs and
> Pynchon as satirists of Cold War America".
>
>
> On 26.03.2016 10:45, Mark Kohut wrote:
>>
>> Get this book in print▼
>>
>> My library
>> <https://books.google.de/books?uid=114584440181414684107&source=gbs_lp_bookshelf_list>
>> My History
>> Books on Google Play <https://play.google.com/store/books>
>>
>> The English Penguin Books Restored text edition assumes--or knows?--
>> it influenced Pynchon.
>>
>>
>> Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
>>
>> Front Cover
>> William S Burroughs
>> <https://www.google.de/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22William+S+Burroughs%22>
>> Penguin Books Limited, Jan 29, 2015 - Fiction
>> <https://www.google.de/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=subject:%22Fiction%22&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0> -
>> 224 pages
>> <https://books.google.de/books?id=8r4cBAAAQBAJ&dq=adenoid++%22naked+lunch%22&sitesec=reviews>1171 Reviews
>> <https://books.google.de/books?id=8r4cBAAAQBAJ&dq=adenoid++%22naked+lunch%22&sitesec=reviews>
>> A cultural landmark and the most shocking novel in the English
>> language, /Naked Lunch/ is an exhilarating ride into the darkest
>> recesses of the human psyche. An unnerving tale of an addict unmoored
>> in New York, Tangier, and ultimately a nightmarish wasteland known as
>> Interzone, /Naked Lunch/'s formal innovation, formerly taboo subject
>> matter, and tour de force execution has exerted its influence authors
>> like Thomas Pynchon and J. G. Ballard; on the relationship of art and
>> obscenity; and on the shape of music, film, and media in general.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 5:35 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
>> <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 25.03.2016 17:22, Monte Davis wrote:
>>
>>> ... So... why an adenoid (i.e. a tonsil), rather than an
>>> appendix or spleen or hypothalamus? Why human tissue at all,
>>> rather than some other stand-in for Osmo's fears? Its slimy
>>> protoplasmic aspect led me on first reading to think of SF movies:
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Master_X-7
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_II
>>>
>>> And its _sshhlop_ing of the troops is parodically close to a
>>> scene of the Martian death ray in Wells' The War of the Worlds.
>>>
>>> All I got -- not much -- is a vague association of the
>>> "adenoidal" voice with a nasal drawl allegedly common among the
>>> UK twits and toffs who might have populated the Foreign Office
>>> in those days. Still around under new management:
>>>
>>> http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/that-adenoidal-nasally-geek-voice
>>>
>>> And Gogol's Nose:
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nose_(Gogol_short_story)
>>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nose_%28Gogol_short_story%29>
>>
>>
>> The word "adenoid" also appears in Naked Lunch:
>>
>> https://books.google.de/books?id=8r4cBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT78&lpg=PT78&dq=adenoid++%22naked+lunch%22&source=bl&ots=YNC0HlpPxh&sig=BPDoowd0_TTYShFszA2npU8SneI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiowqr59t3LAhXC0RQKHYCtDwYQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=adenoid%20%20%22naked%20lunch%22&f=false
>>
>> In its more sarcastic passages, the sound of Gravity's Rainbow
>> resembles that of Burroughs' novel. And "Meeting of International
>> Conference of Technological Psychiatry" sounds like something
>> Pynchon could have come up with in part 4 of GR. Does anybody
>> know for sure whether Pynchon actually read Burroughs' novels and
>> what he thinks about them?
>>
>>
>>
>
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