Re: Pynchon’s Layers Statement

[David Morris]

This was “Bardflight’s” description (on Reddit) of the 3 layers expressed
by the Iceland Spar reflections on the cover or ATD:


Iceland Spar becomes a material of interest in ATD because of how it
polarizes light and splits a singular image and movement of light into 2.
If you place text under spar it doubles the image. But Pynchon places a 3rd
image of the title in between the 2 layers refracted through spar.. He
distingushes it by giving it a different font with serifs. Serific if not
seraphic. We have 3 peaks, three layers of text, 3 sides to enclose the
book and 3 to  break the seal and open it.  Is something going on here?

Let’s look at the 3 layers of text. I have thought a lot about the
structure of Pynchon’s writing and I see it as having 2 very intriguing
properties. One is a division into 3 layers that, as they are overlayed
begin to enrich and magnify each other in amazing ways:

One layer is historic reality, V2 rockets, WW1, Achduke Ferdinand, Nikola
Tesla, the evil halfwit( bad joke),,   etc. etc. are historic and cultural
realities that occupy a fairly large terrain in his writing .

A second layer is what I call the plausible fictive( sometimes called
realism or naturalism or just fiction), these are the characters and their
actions and experiences that bear a reasonable resemblance to people and
actions within the given historic and cultural period.

The third layer is mythic reality, the space occupied by the chums, the
paramorphoscope, the sand submarime, Candlebrow, shambala, Godzilla,
Vheissu of V, the Thanatoids,the caves entered under the influence of a
psychedelic cactus, the photographic dicoveries of Merle Rideout, the ice
monster.

Each novel has these 3 layers . Many writers will have one or 2 layers but
this particular 3 layer structure  where great attention is paid to each is
rare and sets Pynchon apart in a powerful way.  So what I am saying is not
only does he write with this structure, he tells us, as in the book cover,
that he is using this 3 layer pattern.

The 2nd intriguing structural property has to do with pairings and joining
pairs to generate offspring or be found infertile. In ATD there are also
threeway joinings both sexual and social. This is like the literary DNA
that connects the parts and generates new parts. Some of these pairings
happen between layers and some characters like Heino Vanderjuice occupy a
space between layers and often connect characters.

On Sun, Dec 12, 2021 at 6:34 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Skimming the interaction between Joe & Allen, I see Joe refer to a
> statement by Pynchon about his layers of writing:
>
> Joe:  “As you know, because the story, I’m fairly certain, came from your
> [Quail’s] and web page, Pynchon once compared his writing to one of those
> medical texts with overlappable transparent layers.”
>
> Then Joe lays out a 3 layer structure in Pynchon’s writing.  This
> caught my attention because just this week a guy  in the Reddit group ATD
> read (in which I’m participating) proposed his own 3 layer structure that
> seems nearly identical to what Joe proposed.  So this 3 layer idea seems
> to be floating around the internet now, and I’m curious about where it came
> from, and what Pynchon said about his own use of layers in his writing.
>
> So, Big Quail, can you send a link, or just send the whole thing to this
> list?  I’m sorta shocked that I’d never seen it in all my years reading
> Pynchon. Clearly I didn’t dig through the Spermatikos Logos pages deep
> enough back in the day.
>