(Fwd) Re: the Nietzsche quote

[Mascaro at humnet.ucla.edu]

aaron yeater writes:


take the BBC radio schedule in 
GR-Weisenberger, if i remember correctly, notes on several occasions 
that what is mentioned in GR as being on the BBC was actually on 
according to a schedule on a certain date, thus confirming Weisenburger's 
interp. of 
the temporal structure.  but it could be, and we cannot forget the 
possibility, that it is coincidence, or unintentional, etc.  That 
that might just have been a popular song, or just a song he heard the 
tiltle of, or god forbid it might have been a mistake.  and in 
this manner does Pynchon's ironic vision of himself (does he mean it, 
or is it all a big joke?) act as a meta-confirmation of his vision.  
Does the conspiracy control our lives, giving meaning, or are we 
spinning towards meaninglessness, out of control, paranoia our only 
sense of meaning?  
Does the author, 
TRP, control every moment, every sentence and word and phrase and 
reference with a nearly inhuman sense of awareness, or are we just 
imagining meaning, inventing order and structure among shadows to 
ward off our own fears? 

*************
And since Sir Koop has weighed in w/  more lucid than general comment, allow 
my own .02$ of thought to jangle round down the parabolic charity dish.

Does it have to be either/or? (or even your 3rd option which I didn't quote 
above)?  "Certs is a candy mint"/ "Certs is a breath mint"--"Stop, stop!! 
You're BOTH RIGHT!!!"

Meaning is a zone,a field of shadowy borders, not a fixed point.  We enter 
into a TRP world which relies on certain techniques we might more readily 
acknowledge in another mode, like painting: think of collage.  It's not a 
painting of a bottle cap, it's a "real" bootlecap glued to a painted poster 
of a new york street, or something.  Part of its "real" ontological status 
points one way, part another.  Or call it trompe-l'oeil, another painterly 
technique.  I find it interesting that Weisenberger, excellent as he is in 
many respects for shedding light, isn't very clear himself on how to gauge 
these things.  He makes much of P's use of, say, the "real"  BBC broadcast 
records as a means of verisimilitude, and many times he seems to feel that 
TRP does possess this "inhuman" awareness you describe, yet  at other times 
he accounts for obviously impossible "facts" (like the narrative voice's 
reference to "this seventh Christmas of the war") by saying that P sort of 
just got momentarily confused.  I can't accept his vision of such an 
inconsistent "awareness."

I've grappled w/ "problems" of GR's temporal structure for awhile, mostly in 
about 40 dissertation pages, which I know you're all just--dying--for me to 
summarize, but fear not.  (I actually think I can account for that "7th 
Xmas" reference, but, another time . . .)


John Mascaro
UCLA Writing Programs