Rap!

[Jan.Klimkowski at bbc.co.uk]

Okay - I've been observing the goings on in this list for a few months now,
and since I first read GR in 1981 and then followed Andrew Dinn's suggested
course of action (even down to Gaddis - who sucks, I'm afraid, as I find
nothing of interest in his textual Zone), I suppose I qualify as a Member of
the Club - 10 years on and still going...
 
So, I think Bonnie's recent communiques have been keying in on an area of
TP's work which LitCrits tend to shy away from.  TP is often derided for his
lack of traditional characterisation - and for either: a) the woodenness of
his characters; b) there are no characters - they're all TP (or part
thereof).
 
Well, yeah, maybe but so what???  Geli Tripping and Roger Mexico and Prairie
and Blicero and Frenesi and Leni Pokler and even The Pointsmahhnnnnn exist for
me - as Titus Groan and Van Veen and Aslan the Lion and The Joker and the
voice of Angela Carter's The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman exist, in
my imagination, to appear whenever something triggers their appearance. Or
maybe because they just wanted to come out to play, like McKenna's DMT
elves...
 
I cannot think Behaviourism now without thinking foot-thru-toilet-seat
heh-heh (and howzaboutthat for a conditioned response)!
 
Of course TP is an incredibly savvy and aware writer...  Of course
language/discourse is contaminated and transcendence is pushed thru Their
sanctioned channels...  Of course Ones and Zeroes, Everything/Nothing is
Connected, unrealiable unreliable narrators who hate Richard M Zhlubb...  (by
the way the OED tell me that, as far as they're concerned Henry Kissinger -
whose hero is Metternich - invented the phrase "GLOBAL balance of power")
 
But there are passages, in GR especially, which do have the power to touch and
to move.  Indeed, there are countless passages in TP's work which have potency
and resonance for me.  Is it really VERBOTEN to say this to people coming to
GR for the first time?
 
See you all in Warwick.
jan
 
PS is anyone else out there amazed by the ability of one Kevin Kelly, formerly
editor and publisher of the Whole Earth Review (as the duskjacket tells me),
to put it all together in yet another amazing synthesis going by the name of
"Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines"?
 
PPS for lovers of conspiracy theories and divination, did TP predict KK's
book/conversion in the 1984 "Is it O.K. to be a Luddite?"
 
PPPS I personally feel "Luddite" had a hand in spawning "The Difference
Engine" - if this hasn't already been noted in the literature...