International boundaries are places of abrupt transition, where a conceptual cartographic line can manifest itself physically in many ways. Along the US/Canada border, it is often in the form of a low fence or a cut-line through the trees, running along the path of the border. If roads head to the border in a perpendicular fashion, from either side, and do not hit a natural obstacle like a river, they are usually blocked by earthen berms, posts, guardrail, or overgrowth. If the road goes through the border, it usually has an inspection station, one for each country, on either side of the line.
The Modern Word is a large network of literary sites dedicated to exploring twentieth century writers who have pushed the envelope of traditional narrative and structure
I have two theories about the possible origins of Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Inherent Vice. Theory one: It's a postmodern genre work that ironizes the very conventions of detective fiction that it follows, while at the same time articulating and satirizing the excesses of violence, drug use, sloth and sex that typify late-20th-century American culture. Stretching, bending and self-reflexively interrogating the stretchy, bendy, interrogative textures of detective fiction, the novel, this first theory proposes, is an exercise in, say, epistemological entropy and/or consumptive consumption.