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From: mmar@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Mitchell Marks)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Thomas Pynchon (really William Gaddis)
Message-ID: <1786@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Mar-86 00:08:09 EST
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1786
Posted: Sun Mar  9 00:08:09 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Mar-86 00:31:46 EST
References: <25@rtgvax.UUCP> <156@epimass.UUCP> <947@h-sc1.UUCP> <1746@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <698@rti-sel.UUCP>
Reply-To: mmar@sphinx.UUCP (Mitchell Marks)
Organization: U Chicago
Lines: 42
Summary: 

In article <698@rti-sel.UUCP> wfi@rti-sel.UUCP (William Ingogly) writes:
>In article <1746@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> mmar@sphinx.UUCP (Mitchell Marks) writes:
>
>>	Gaddis has the complexity and playfulness of Pynchon, and the
>>audacity of the more obvious experimentalists, but also an important
>>underlying seriousness Pynchon largely lacks.  The heat-death of the
>>universe -- what a stupid thing to worry about when you get right down
>>to it.  Sex, art, and religion -- now those are important things to worry
>>about.
>
>Entropy is in fact an important theme in Pynchon's work, but to refer
>to his use of it as a silly obsession with the heat death of the 
>universe is to oversimplify. Grossly. In Pynchon's work, entropy is 
>the central fact behind things falling apart in our human world, esp.
>communication. I see nothing 'stupid' about this notion.
>
      Yes, guilty as charged.  I knew it was a gross oversimplification
the minute I saw my fingers type it; but I kept it anyway, in a polemical
spirit.  Certainly it's a charged metaphor with bearing on matters
closer to home, as Bill points out.

>As to seriousness, Pynchon seems to be saying Hell, we've had enough
>seriousness and see what it's gotten us: the arms race, concentration
>camps, torture, terrorism wherever we turn. Gimme a pie in the face,
>old buddih; gimme Pig Bodine, and baby Tyrone, and Benny Profane. The
>appropriate 'serious' literature for our age is a stack of Zap comix.
>
   I hope we're talking about the same thing.  By 'seriousness' I
don't mean long-faced solemnity.  And I agree that seriousness is
quite compatible with a comic novel (hell, take _Ulysses_).  But
Pynchon isn't truly comic, though his work is filled with hijinx
(which are fun all the way through _V._ and parts of _Gravity's Rainbow_,
but can get tedious in the latter -- e.g., the submarine scenes).
I say he's not truly comic -- he's striving for profundity underneath
the hijinx, and it's an annoying sort of striving, whose idea of
depth is bleakness.


-- 

            -- Mitch Marks @ UChicago 
               ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar