V. Revisited (2)

(via @beTusconan via Geoff Manaugh on twitter)

"It often seems that we can stare directly into the wasteland without fear, not because there is nothing of risk there, but because our own words simply cannot communicate the inevitability of doom."

Particularities. Exotic, but you feel must be right, particularities: far beyond the needs of verisimilitude or plot. As an end in themselves. As if characters (& which one will become the star?). The mystery of knowing. (And not infrequently someone will remark on this.) How this is different from in Tolstoy.

Whether Pynchon stole anything from Gaddis (who seemed not to care if you got it--unlike P., who says: All of this, matters).