(no subject)

[proximoception]

I wonder if you could even use the Browning connection to sketch out a Bloomian reading of young Pynchon's relation to tradition. The Roland finale is reread so that the fallen questers become the opponent in the climactic battle: the primal scene of dark invaders murdering a lone messenger and throwing him in a lake seems echoed in the sinister bidders and auctioneer. Too much tradition is drowning him, hence the parodies, paranoia and lunacy. And obsession with entropy...eesh. And what is the whole story but Oedipa (OH NO, her NAME) coming upon IT "and deciding it could not be come upon, and

Oh

Holy crap, the use of the title as the last line EXACTLY MATCHES BROWNING'S. (*Stupidity noise*)

First off, more proof of Bloom's omniscience. Second off, I wonder who has noticed any/all of this before, because if by some chance I'm the first this has strong potential to be a resume line (how terrible that I think in these terms now).

Comments

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Did you ever read Pynchon's introduction to his stories in Slow Learner? He talks some about influences there.

Also, her name. Oedipa Maas. Oedipa Ma as. Oedipa My Ass.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but it's the unacknowledged influences that would be at issue, in such a reading--he mentions stuff like Nabokov and Bugs Bunny there, as I recall, and not what's pertinent: the ancient, darkening and increasingly down-weighing visionary quest tradition. The same one that gives us Blood Meridian.

The painting's called Invocacion, I'm trying to hunt it down.