Pynchon's politics again

[LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu]

to: Bonnie--you see, we were all here, just disembodied presences!

Oh well.  Jan sez:
"Whilst I'm pleased to see Pynchon's metaphysics being aired again, I'm not
sure that I would call "paranoia" in the above sense metaphysical.  (If I've
misunderstood, profuse apologies.)  The kind of Pynchonian metaphysics that
I think is worthy of a far fuller exploration is, for instance, his attitude
towards and artistic use of the Golden Dawn's magickal System in GR.  The
point about the degree of understanding of these "secret politics" that the
individual can have is well made, but we're still often talking about the
exposure of real economic connections.  For instance, the General Electric
Global Empire is still going strong - and, as an individual, I can apprehend
it in a way which I would not categorize as metaphysical."


I'd say there are metaphysics and metaphysics.  In V., the Conspiracy that
Stencil imagines (and which is reinforced by P's imagery) is of some malign
Otherworldly Presence whose mission on earth is to enhance the eventual
triumph of entropy--the movement toward inanimation.

In GR, on the other hand, there may be also malign otherworldly presences, but
their mission is entrusted to real (or at least fictively real) characters
with real ends on This World of suppressing others.


COL49 falls somewhere inbetween--the Tristero has a grounding in some kind 
of social reality (all the more so when one discovers that Thurn and Taxis
was a real entity) but is ambiguous in what it represents.

GR, as Jan points out, is much more overtly concerned with the social,
economic and political activities of real people in real places--but the
metaphysical is always there too.


One thing that may be a source of confusion is what we mean by "political."
When I use the term, I assume it to encompass just about anything that
involves the social interactions of human beings.  Other people seem to be
using the term much more narrowly.


Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)