tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post1663128134116320841..comments2023-11-03T08:02:25.369-04:00Comments on AmericanScience: A Team Blog: AmericanScience in Literature: PynchonDavid Roth Singermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12841041983824755867noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post-24739951510227176512011-11-21T21:07:38.164-05:002011-11-21T21:07:38.164-05:00The question of how historians of science can enga...The question of how historians of science can engage more critically with American literature is a fascinating one, and I think we can push back even further than Pynchon. Here, I'm thinking about Edgar Allan Poe's influence on both American (not to mention French) science & engineering and fiction. John Tresch's excellent work on Poe, for example, is a different kind of example of how historians of science are approaching literature . . .Joannahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08492807162664423251noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post-35848733232687563622011-11-21T20:51:41.457-05:002011-11-21T20:51:41.457-05:00I guess I would respond in three ways:
A. Pynchon...I guess I would respond in three ways:<br /><br />A. Pynchon *is* up-to-date (no one denies this – it's part of calling him a polymath); the claim is that he might be *more* accurate than historians, since fiction captures a multivalency history seems to abjure.<br /><br />B. Probably (2) and (3) are closer together than this implies – though that's my fault, not yours. Understanding how far Pynchon is into this idea of science means tracing its effects on his prose style, too.<br /><br />C. Historians should be more attuned to the techniques of literary criticism, though more for the benefit of interpreting contemporaneous literature than more recent literary interpretations of past events.Hankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02841787256060612291noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1030220433025894048.post-73286585268142885712011-11-21T19:03:59.515-05:002011-11-21T19:03:59.515-05:00It sounds like you're making three suggestions...It sounds like you're making three suggestions here. <br /><br />1. Pynchon is up-to-date with his history of science (as Menand's remark more or less implies). <br />2. Pynchon should inspire historians of science to examine the contemporary fictional record for science as an imaginary.<br />3. Pynchon's work itself would be more illuminating, if only historians would get more narratological. <br /><br />If I'm right about #3, I've got a follow-up question: What's the Hank Take on this proposition? What does Pynchon's particular framing of, say, fin-de-siècle Leadville (!) offer the historian who already inhabits the general analytical view you've described here?Jamie https://www.blogger.com/profile/13542022273476075921noreply@blogger.com