01.02: Slow Learner

In which we begin our discussion of Mr. Pynchon’s short story collection Slow Learner. First we talk about the Introduction, the only extant Pynchon-on-Pynchon writing available, and then move to the first short story, “The Small Rain.”

Notes:

In “The Small Rain,” the hurricane that has recently passed through southern Louisiana is hurricane Audrey. Here are a few informational links:

A 1957 newsreel about the devastation: (YouTube)

Historical photographs from Cameron Parish, Louisiana, where Lardass Levine would have watched the corpses loaded onto barges.

Information from the National Weather Service’s site.