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The Pynchon/Heidegger connection is mainly about technology. <br>
<br>
Here comes something new --<br>
<br>
The Hyperobject's Atomization of "Self" in Gravity's Rainbow<br>
<br>
by T.J. Martinson<br>
<br>
> <small>... In a 2001 article, Patrick McHugh suggests that
Pynchon uses Heideggerian ontology as a meta-representation of
the radicalism and cultural revolution represented in <em>Gravity’s
Rainbow</em>. This particular claim is far outside the scope
of the current essay, but it holds true that there are uncanny
parallels between Heidegger’s ontological work and Pynchon’s <em>Gravity’s
Rainbow. </em>Specifically, there are similarities between
Heidegger’s notion of “equipment†and Pynchon’s Schwarzgerät, a
component of the Rocket itself. In <em>Being and Time</em>,
Heidegger refines his use of the word “things†and opts that
instead, “We shall call those entities which we encounter in
concern ‘<em>equipment</em>’†(<span class="xref"
id="IDb017e273-6479-4f14-89e3-946eaa89a38d"><strong><a
class="scroll-link"
href="https://www.pynchon.net/articles/10.7766/orbit.v3.1.145/#ID11f70841-9590-4d68-aacf-859d22797523"
data-scroll="#ID11f70841-9590-4d68-aacf-859d22797523"
rel="footnote">97</a></strong></span>). Writing in German,
Heidegger used the word <em>Zeug</em>, which, as the
translators John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson mention in a
footnote, “has no precise English equivalent. While it may mean
any implement, instrument, or tool, Heidegger uses it for the
most part as a collective noun which is analogous to our
relatively specific ‘gear’ […] or the still more general
‘equipment’†(<span class="xref"
id="IDe5ce7d1e-61da-4c7c-b42c-b5eca5ab3aeb"><strong><a
class="scroll-link"
href="https://www.pynchon.net/articles/10.7766/orbit.v3.1.145/#ID11f70841-9590-4d68-aacf-859d22797523"
data-scroll="#ID11f70841-9590-4d68-aacf-859d22797523"
rel="footnote">97</a></strong></span>). Similarly, <em>Gerät</em>
(of Schwarzgerät) is without a precise English equivalent; it
can be translated as “deviceâ€â€”or, like <em>Zeug</em>,
as—“equipment,†“instrument,†or even “tool.†Schwarzgerät
(which has mostly been referred to as “black device†within
Pynchon studies) already bears resemblance to Heidegger’s
“equipment.†In <em>Gravity’s Rainbow</em>, Enzian (a native
speaker of German) translates Schwarzgerät for the
English-speaking Slothrop as “Blackinstrument†(<em>GR</em> 369)
... What is occasionally referred to as the “black deviceâ€
throughout the novel could just as well be called the “black
instrument†or, taking Heidegger’s possible influence into
consideration, “black equipment.†What such a reading would
imply for the Rocket and the Schwarzgerät is quite simple in the
context of a previous quote from Heidegger. A thing is
inherently, proximally hidden: “[Objects] never show themselves
proximally as they are for themselves, so as to add up to a sum
of realia and fill up a room†(<span class="xref"
id="ID4fdc4139-006c-4d54-82dd-a913b4163f17"><strong><a
class="scroll-link"
href="https://www.pynchon.net/articles/10.7766/orbit.v3.1.145/#ID11f70841-9590-4d68-aacf-859d22797523"
data-scroll="#ID11f70841-9590-4d68-aacf-859d22797523"
rel="footnote">Heidegger 98</a></strong></span>). The
Rocket and Schwarzgerät are perfect manifestations of
“proximally hidden†objects. Though their existence is
documented in dossiers and reports, they remain in a constant
state of <em>elsewhere</em>. As the narrator says about the
workers in the factory that produced the Schwarzgerät: “Whatever
the new device [the Schwarzgerät] was, nobody saw it†(<em>GR</em>
439). While the analogue alone would provide for an interesting
analysis of the Schwarzgerät, I am interested in pushing the
Heideggerian analogue toward a recent concept born of OOO: the
hyperobject. At once strikingly familiar to Heidegger’s object,
yet hauntingly different, the hyperobject, which will be
discussed at length later on, offers the most chillingly
accurate analogue of the elusive Rocket and its Schwarzgerät ...</small><
<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.pynchon.net/articles/10.7766/orbit.v3.1.145/">https://www.pynchon.net/articles/10.7766/orbit.v3.1.145/</a><br>
<br>
Martinson tries to understand Gravity's Rainbow with the help of
Being and Time, even more fruitful it appears to me to read
Pynchon's work in the perspective of The Question Concerning
Technology. <br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Question_Concerning_Technology">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Question_Concerning_Technology</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://simondon.ocular-witness.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/question_concerning_technology.pdf">http://simondon.ocular-witness.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/question_concerning_technology.pdf</a><br>
<br>
On 04.09.2015 09:49, jochen stremmel wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAAPsMj7CYpoix1H7q0Tb7a4iaackURpo1qVh6Jtg=TWaMzZgyQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Of all the catchwords there (in the context of
American Life and Literature) one puzzles me a bit: Heidegger,
Martin. Kind of a "ceterum censeo"?<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">2015-09-04 8:41 GMT+02:00 Kai Frederik
Lorentzen <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:lorentzen@hotmail.de" target="_blank">lorentzen@hotmail.de</a>></span>:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br>
> The papers collected in this volume were presented at a
conference on “The Journey of Life†which took place at
Paderborn University in October 2013. They focus on a
perennially recurring archetype of the human imagination
which, for obvious reasons, is especially influential in the
U.S. The articles offer exemplary insights into the
manifestations and functions of the ‘journey of life’
concept in both American life and literature. Some
contributions deal with ‘real’ journeys ranging from the
westward travels of pioneer women physicians in the
nineteenth century through Jack London’s ‘journeys of life’
to the attempts at tinkering with the human journey of life
in the age of biotechnology. Other contributions present a
taxonomy of journey types in American fiction, and they
analyze literary journeys from the omnipresent journeys in
Thomas Pynchon’s novels and the post-apocalyptic journey in
Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ through the journey plot in
Robert Kirkman’s serial comic ‘The Walking Dead’ and the
various kinds of journeys in Western films to the journeys
of initiation in Sherman Alexie’s ‘The Absolutely True Diary
of a Part-Time Indian’ and José Antonio Villarréal’s
‘Pocho’. <<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.winter-verlag.de/en/detail/978-3-8253-7518-8/Freese_Ed_The_Journey_of_Life_PDF/"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.winter-verlag.de/en/detail/978-3-8253-7518-8/Freese_Ed_The_Journey_of_Life_PDF/</a><br>
<br>
-<br>
Pynchon-l / <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l</a><br>
</blockquote>
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