This page contains materials
intended to facilitate class discussion
(excerpts from readings, outlines of issues,
links to resources, etc.). The materials
are not necessarily the same as the instructor's
teaching notes and are not designed to represent
a full exposition or argument. This page
is subject to revision as the instructor
finalizes preparation. (Last revised
1/27/03
)
Preliminary Class
Business
Literary and Artistic
Responses to the Information Revolution
Our agenda in the next series of classes:
The Literature of Information
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot
49 (1965)
Toward a New Media Literature
William Gibson, Agrippa (A Book of
the Dead) (1992)
Digital (Hypertext) Literature
Ed Falco & Olia Lialina (1996-99)
Graphic Arts, Digital Art, &
Network Art in the New Media Age
David Carson, April Greiman, advanced
Web design, George Legrady, Lisa Jevbratt
Thomas Pynchon
One of the major novelists of the postmodern
age, who chronicles the transition from
the Cold War to countercultural eras through
a literature that draws for its imaginative
materials upon:
—
science and technology
—
the "military-industrial complex"
& counterculture
—
history
—
information and media culture
What we know about Pynchon:
Born 1937; grew up in suburbs of Long
Island
Contributor to his high-school newspaper,
where he wrote a column under the pseudonyms
"Roscoe Stein," "Boscoe
Stein," and "Bosc"
Went to Cornell in late 1950s; studied
engineering physics and then English
literature (took a class at Cornell
from Nabokov); friend of writer and
folksinger Richard Farina; graduated
1958
(Pynchon's
reminiscence of Richard Farina)
Joined the Navy; served possibly as
a signal corpsman
Went to Greenwich Village for a year
to write. Spent two years beginning
1960 in Seattle as a technical writer
and engineering aide at Boeing.
Then drops out of sight. No pictures;
no interviews; no appearances at award
ceremonies; no TV appearances. Rumored
to live at various times in California,
Mexico, New York. (Compare/contrast the
seclusion of J.D. Salinger)
He is incommunicado.
Writings:
V. (1963)
The Crying of Lot 49 (1965)
Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
Slow Learner (short stories,
1984)
Vineland (1990)
Mason & Dixon (1997)
Crying of Lot 49:
(1965):
What Would You Bet?
p. 1
10
31
71
And so it begins for Oedipa Maas.
Analogy: the dictionary
game.
Is there a message for us in the
dictionary? Is it a plot? Or is
it just amazing chance?
How would you know?
How much would you bet?
–At the core of Pynchon's novels
(and postmodern fictions generally), there
is an intellectual puzzle, a question
of knowledge regarding a secret order
behind things, a conspiracy (cf., other
postmodern fictions: Umberto Eco, Name
of the Rose; Fredric Jameson's The
Geopolitical Aesthetic).
The grand intellectual question of Pynchon's
novel concerns the Tristero conspiracy:
What is the Tristero? Does it exist? A
question that spins outward into a vast
labyrinth of historical speculation, textual
mysteries, detective quests, etc., all
overlapping with the scientific mystery
of entropy.
The
question is compiled in digital form as
"either/or" (pp. 88, 140-41,
150).
–But
the means of access to knowledge is denied
(the muted oracles of the novel: e.g.,
Pierce Inverarity, Randolph Driblette,
the man from Inamoriti Anonymous in the
gay bar, the Nefastis Machine)
–So then it becomes a question
of character: how far are you willing
to go to find out? What would you risk?
How much would you bet? (cf. Pascal's
wager).
The real question of the novel–the
question that weaves the intellectual
puzzle into the dramatic core of the story,
in the character of the heroine–is:
what is Oedipa Maas willing to bet, and
why? (p. 22)
