LitHub Review of ST

[J Tracy]

Conspiracy is not a major theme of the article or Rich’s comment. You seem to be over reacting to a single minor line in the article:  "Each marks a different phase in the history of information: the analog haze of the 1960s, the digital pre-9/11 netherworld, the proto-industrial conspiracies of the 1930s. Are you actually  saying the 30s were a time when no business ever conspired to break laws, or that Pynchon never includes conspiracies in his work?  Really?   I do like your remarks about V.  I would say V does make some connection to the readers sense of the possibility of reform coming from the light of investigation that illumines hidden realities and the connection of those realities both to empire and personal ambition, but your summary is the dominant tone and direction..  I see that light get much brighter in historic spaces of new possibility like M&D  and ATD, though still contrasted by the approaching forces of  science as a means control and industrialized greed at play.  
  

> On Dec 12, 2025, at 7:59 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I don't differ with you and "deep dread"per the rest of what you say....but
> deep dread does not entail conspiracy to me necessarily....
> 
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 7:35 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I think he means the feeling of deep dread in the earlier works V 49 GR
>> was so pervasive, all encompassing and directed whereas post-GR it's mostly
>> diluted, spread more thinly, across many actors, and still retaining some
>> bite
>> 
>> rich
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 4:33 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> I differ......what is V but the map of all that is already ruined and
>>> ends dead ended in Malta?....V is in ruins,
>>> paranoia is a McMuffin, as it is in The Crying of Lot 49, part of the
>>> problem of the ruins...
>>> 
>>> Yes, Shadow Ticket to Hungary where one ends up upon  leaving the
>>> vanished reality of Milwaukee.
>>> Milwaukee, the socialist utopia of where America could have gone but for
>>> corruption coming in on
>>> the North Shore line....
>>> 
>>> On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 12:57 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I liked this bit:   The early Pynchon sought to map the whole paranoid
>>>> system; the late Pynchon inhabits its ruins and perhaps what remains—the
>>>> slapstick, the style, and the pathos—is a “shadow ticket” to a reality
>>>> that
>>>> has already vanished.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> https://lithub.com/studies-in-unmeaning-on-thomas-pynchons-detective-fictions/
>>>> --
>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>> 
>>> 
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l