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Journal ArticleDOI

Singing Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow: Interfaces of Song, Narrative, and Sonic Performance

01 Jan 2017-Partial Answers (The Johns Hopkins University Press)-Vol. 15, Iss: 1, pp 117-133
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the novel's acoustic background, pointing to the formal structure of songs and its role in locating singing human voices in opposition to noises emitted by technological devices such as V2 rockets.
Abstract: Thomas Pynchon’s interest in music is audibly reflected in the rich intertextual environments of his works such as Gravity’s Rainbow , a novel which includes numerous allusions to musical pieces, descriptions of performances, and song lyrics. The latter stand out from prose narrative as they introduce new diegetic dimensions to the novel by offering playful commentary on its plot and characters. The present study examines the novel’s acoustic background, pointing to the formal structure of songs and its role in locating singing human voices in opposition to noises emitted by technological devices such as V2 rockets. A classification scheme shows how Pynchon’s formal experimentation juxtaposes written and oral variants of language, thus connecting songs to one of the novel’s thematic centers — problematics of order. This function of songs is examined in an episode of Vaslav Tchitcherine’s mission of promoting literacy among oral tribes of Kazakhstan, that serves as a commentary on the conventional character of writing systems and their ability to transform the poetic quality of language into a systematic structure.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors investigates the fifteen-year evolution of the Soviet Union's strategy towards its multi-ethnic jurisdiction from the 'Lenin Constitution' of 1923 through to the consolidation of the 'Stalin Constitution' in 1936.
Abstract: Weighing in at over five hundred pages, this formidable work of scholarship investigates the fifteen-year evolution of the Soviet Union's strategy towards its multi-ethnic jurisdiction from the 'Lenin Constitution' of 1923 through to the consolidation of the 'Stalin Constitution' of 1936. The touchstone of such a complex and convoluted topic is the principle of what is now termed 'affirmative action': received wisdom holds that the Soviet Union adopted 'korenizatsiia' or 'indigenisation' in the 1920s as \"a prophylactic policy designed to defuse and prevent the development of nationalism\" (p. 126) by simultaneously favouring the minority nonRussian nationalities and penalising the majority Russian nation. In the course of the 1930s, however, affirmative action was abandoned and then reversed, initially as a 'Great Retreat' and most calamitously in a 'Great Terror' which reasserted Russian dominance and victimised the previously-privileged non-Russians to create a covert 'Russian Empire' legitimised by the meretricious doctrine of the 'Friendship of Peoples'.

89 citations

Book ChapterDOI
30 Jun 2019
TL;DR: In this article, a review of the literature is used as a way to frame and focus a research project, which can help to enhance conceptual sensitivity and make claims about the possible significance of a work.
Abstract: Q: Why do a review of the literature? 1. As a way to frame and focus a research project  When research questions are formed without sustained reference to the literature, the study is likely to be marred by 1. Naïve research instruments that lack conceptual underpinnings 2. Problems with sense-making because the researcher is not alert to themes that may be identifiable 3. Problems with claims-making because the researcher lacks the knowledge to state its significance for theory, policy or practice.  Knowledge of the literature can help: 1. Tighten research questions 2. Enhance conceptual sensitivity 3. Provide a source for making comparisons 4. Provide a cache of descriptive data 5. Provide questions for initial observations and interviews 6. Stimulate questions during the analysis 7. Suggest areas for theoretical sampling 8. Confirm findings, or, findings can be used to show where current literature is incorrect, simplistic, or partial 9. Model ways of making claims about the possible significance of your work

69 citations

Book
01 Jan 2005

38 citations

Book ChapterDOI
30 Jun 2019

8 citations

References
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Book
07 Jul 1994
TL;DR: Limon argues that The Iliad inaugurates Western literature on the failure of war to be duel-like, to have a beautiful form, and that war's failure is literature's justification.
Abstract: In Writing After War, John Limon develops a theory of the relationship of war in general to literature in general, in order to make sense of American literary history in particular. Applying the work of war theorists Carl von Clausewitz and Elaine Scarry, John Limon argues that The Iliad inaugurates Western literature on the failure of war to be duel-like, to have a beautiful form. War's failure is literature's justification. American literary history is demarcated by wars, as if literary epochs, like the history of literature itself, required bloodshed to commence. But in chapters on periods of literary history from realism, generally taken to be a product of the Civil War, through modernism, usually assumed to be a prediction or result of the Great War, up to postmodernism which followed World War II and spanned Vietnam, Limon argues that, despite the looming presence of war in American history, the techniques that define these periods are essentially ways of not writing war. From James and Twain, through Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and even Hemingway, to Pynchon, our national literary history is not hopelessly masculinist, Limon argues. Instead, it arrives naturally at Bobbie Ann Mason and Maxine Hong Kingston. Kingston brings the discussion full circle: The Woman Warrior, like The Iliad, appears to condemn the fall from duel to war that is literature's endless opening.

21 citations

Book
01 Apr 1980
TL;DR: Pynchon's true art lies in humanistic allusions that stress the possibility of spiritually separating oneself from the modern wasteland as mentioned in this paper, and these allusions call into question what is real and what is not.
Abstract: This fresh examination of Pynchon s use of painting, film, music, and literature shows that his true art lies in humanistic allusions that stress the possibility of spiritually separating oneself from the modern wasteland.Cowart disagrees with critics who see Pynchon as a scientist writing about entropy, although Pynchon does illustrate the nihilistic world for which he is famous in allusions to painting and film, both of which mask a Void. But more important, these allusions call into question what is real and what is not. Through musical and literary allusions Pynchon suggests the speculative world, the world of unrealized possibility. Music hints at the dimensions of experience people miss because of the narrow range of experiences to which they are attuned. Literary allusions support and extend the almost mystical sense created by musical allusions, thus suggesting that in Pynchon s view, human consciousness need not be trapped by entropic drift."

20 citations

Book
01 Jan 1994
TL;DR: The Vineland Papers as discussed by the authors is the first book-length study of Pynchon's problematic new novel, which is a collection of essays from a dozen leading critics examining it from a variety of angles: its relation to Pyncho's previous work, its humor, its use of various technical fields, its history and film, its politics, its structure, and its autobiographical elements.
Abstract: The publication of Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland in 1990, 17 years after his epochal Gravity's Rainbow, received unprecedented attention from the media and tens of thousands of readers, all wondering why the novel was so long in the making and whether it would be as momentous as his last novel. The Vineland Papers is the first book-length study of Pynchon's problematic new novel: a dozen leading Pynchon critics offer their takes on the book examining it from a variety of angles: its relation to Pynchon's previous work, its humor, its use of various technical fields, its use of history and film, its politics, its structure, and its autobiographical elements. Feminist theory is brought to bear on Pynchon's representation of women in the novel by several of the contributors, and all of them write in an accessible manner so that the book will appeal to the general reader as well as the scholar. For many readers and scholars alike Pynchon is the single most important living novelist, and The Vineland Papers is invaluable for understanding how his fourth novel alters or confirms that reputation. The contributors include David Cowart, N. Katherine Hayles, David Porush, Elaine B. Safer, Joseph Slade, Joseph Tabbi, Susan Strehle, Stacey Olster, Molly Hite, William E. Grim, Eric Solomon, Andrew Gordon, and Clifford Mead.

18 citations