The September 11 attacks spelt the end of the 'systems novel' and the rise of a more diverse and meaningful literary landscape.The systems novel has been put to the test here and although it predicted the world we would live in, it cannot be used to capture it today. This end of the systems novel is, however, not such a bad thing; it marks a necessary end to a fiction about a kind of fiction.
... it bears repeating: the end of the systems novel is a good thing because it is a chance to remind American readers that the most interesting things often happen at the margin. In this case the margin would be at the fringes of American power.[more inside]
posted by chavenet
on Sep 10, 2011 -
22 comments
Thomas Pynchon is one of the great unheard lyricists. His award-winning novel, Gravity's Rainbow, is full of song lyrics. Depending on how you count, there are around 100 in the book. Over the course of a year, the Thomas Pynchon Fake Book managed to set twenty-eight of them to music. [more inside]
posted by chavenet
on Oct 14, 2010 -
65 comments
