i Table of Contents Christophe Den Tandt Professor Université Libre de Bruxelles Postmodernism in Anglo-American Fiction VOL II: First-Generation Postmodernism: Thomas Pynchon; Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; Julian Barnes v Table of Contents 0.1 Online Information ............................................................................................................................... vii 0.2 Scope of the Present Notes ................................................................................................................... vii 0.3 Bibliographical Sources ....................................................................................................................... vii 0.4 Formatting and Style Sheet .................................................................................................................. vii 2.3 First-Generation Postmodernist Fiction ........................................................................................ 114 2.3.1 US Fiction from the 1950 to the '70s ............................................................................................... 114 2.3.2 Thomas Pynchon (1937-) ............................................................................................................. 119 2.3.2.1 Biography .................................................................................................................................... 119 2.3.2.2 Pynchon’s Works ........................................................................................................................ 120 2.3.2.2.1 Literary influences: “Traditional” vs. Beat Fiction .................................................................. 120 2.3.2.2.2 Slow Learner ............................................................................................................................ 122 2.3.2.2.3 V ............................................................................................................................................... 122 2.3.2.2.4 The Crying of Lot 49 ................................................................................................................. 123 2.3.2.2.5 Gravity’s Rainbow .................................................................................................................... 123 2.3.2.2.6 Vineland ................................................................................................................................... 127 2.3.2.2.7 Mason and Dixon ..................................................................................................................... 127 2.3.2.2.8 Against the Day ........................................................................................................................ 128 2.3.2.2.9 Inherent Vice ............................................................................................................................. 128 2.3.2.2 The Crying of Lot 49: Analysis ................................................................................................... 129 2.3.2.2.1 Synopsis .................................................................................................................................... 129 2.3.2.3.2 A James Joyce Cartoon ............................................................................................................. 129 2.3.2.3.2.1 Cartoonesque (Post)modernism ............................................................................................ 129 2.3.2.3.2.2 A Realist Premise? Suburbia and its Discontents ................................................................... 131 2.3.2.3.2.3 Subverting the Mythical Method ............................................................................................ 132 2.3.2.3.3 A Literary Map of Techno-Consumerist America .............................................................. 136 2.3.2.3.3.1 Pynchon and the “Great American Novel” ............................................................................ 136 2.3.2.3.3.2 Allegorical Snapshots of Inverarity’s estate ........................................................................... 137 2.3.2.3.3.2.1 A Catalogue of Subject Positions ........................................................................................ 137 2.3.2.3.3.2.2 Mucho’s Car-Lot Nightmare ............................................................................................... 138 2.3.2.3.3.2.3 Mucho’s Muzak Revelation ............................................................................................... 140 2.3.2.3.3.2.4 The Pensive Girl in the Tower ........................................................................................... 141 2.3.2.3.3.2.5 The San Narciso Epiphany .................................................................................................. 142 2.3.2.3.3.2.5.1 Cities in the Semblance of Electronic Circuitry ............................................................... 142 2.3.2.3.3.2.5.2 The Disappearance of Nature ........................................................................................... 144 2.3.2.3.3.2.5.3 Nostalgia ......................................................................................................................... 147 2.3.2.3.3.2.5.4 The Marginalization of Dissent ........................................................................................ 150 2.3.2.3.3.2.5.5 Hieroglyphic Revelations: Postmodernist Romance ........................................................ 151 2.3.2.3.3.2.6 Semiotic Ecstasy and Paranoid Delirium ........................................................................... 153 2.3.2.3.3.2.7 Apocalypse v. Internal Exile .............................................................................................. 154 2.3.2.3.3.3 Closure v. the Promise of Openness ....................................................................................... 155 2.3.2.3.4 The Tristero narrative ............................................................................................................ 157 2.3.2.3.4.1 Subcultures, Countercultures, Dissent .................................................................................... 157 2.3.2.3.4.2 A Counterforce for the Information Age ................................................................................ 157 2.3.2.3.4.3 The Elusiveness of Diversity .................................................................................................. 159 2.3.2.3.4.4 The Tristero Narrative: Story Analysis .................................................................................. 161 2.3.2.3.4.4.1 “Story” v. “Plot” .................................................................................................................. 161 2.3.2.3.4.4.2 Thurn and Taxis v. Tristero: a Story of Postal Subversion.................................................. 161 2.3.2.3.4.4.3 The Courier’s Tragedy: Pynchon’s Use of Family Narratives ........................................... 166 2.3.2.3.4.5 The Tristero Narrative: “Plot” Analysis ................................................................................. 168 2.3.2.3.4.5.1 In Borrowed Voices: Authenticity v. Intertextuality ........................................................... 168 2.3.2.3.4.5.2 Paranoia and Undecidable Narrative Focalization .............................................................. 169 2.3.2.3.4.5.3 Paper Trail and Borgesian Labyrinths ................................................................................. 175 2.3.2.3.4.5.3.1 The Legacy of Crime Fiction ........................................................................................... 175 2.3.2.3.4.5.3.2 Borgesian Metafiction ...................................................................................................... 176 vi Table of Contents 2.3.2.3.4.5.4 Embedded Stories and “Narrative Donors” ......................................................................... 177 2.3.2.3.5 The Crying of Lot 49: conclusion ............................................................................................ 179 2.3.3 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ........................................................................................................................ 181 2.3.3.1 Biography .................................................................................................................................... 181 2.3.3.2 Slaughterhouse-Five .................................................................................................................. 182 2.3.3.2.1 A Novel that Defies Genre Categories ..................................................................................... 182 2.3.3.2.2 Metafiction in Slaughterhouse-Five ......................................................................................... 182 2.3.3.2.2.1 The Gamut of Vonnegut’s Metafictional Techniques ........................................................... 182 2.3.3.2.2.2 The Psychological Motivation of Metafiction ....................................................................... 184 2.3.3.2.3 Affluence, Anxiety, Trauma, and Healing ............................................................................... 184 2.3.3.2.4 Existentialism in Slaughterhouse-Five ..................................................................................... 185 2.3.3.2.4.1 The Existentialist Legacy ...................................................................................................... 185 2.3.3.2.4.2 Existentialism