Transcendence

[LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu]

Ron Churgin writes:
"I have always interpreted the Von Braun quote above as an ironic comment     
by Pynchon.  Von Braun, by helping develop ICBM's, is one of Them.  He's
someone so blinded by the control and power that  science gives us that he
cannot see what he is really doing.  His work on the Rocket made possible the
threat of nuclear annhiliation that we were all living under in the post-war
era. (hopefully to a lesser extent now)  The irony of the Von Braun quote is
that his work has made the possibility of the extinction of all life
frighteningly real.  This kind of unthinking devotion to Science without any
thought to its consequences is what Pynchon is saying will bring us to
extinction.  Von Braun's blithe dismissal of the possibility of extinction
and his touching faith in spiritual existence after death is especially
piquant in the light of his contributions to the possibility of the
extinction of us all.
 
I can see the "beautifully transcendent" nature of the quote, but only if it
is totally divorced from its context.  I always read it with a laugh that
only partially covers the chill."


A similar question might be raised about the ascension of Lyle Bland.  Bland at
least is removing himself from his machiavellian maneuverings in This World, but
who knows what he'll encounter on the other side?  Then there's the narrator's
comment that Buddy was "better off" for going to horror movies than sticking 
around for Pop's final words (and later funeral for the body).

I may be projecting (a world) here, but I tend to place Pynchon with those
American authors who are at least skeptical about the kind of German Romantic
transcendence encapsulated in the von Braun quote--eg. Wallace Stevens,
Robert Frost (this is an affinity, a synchronicity perhaps, not "influence,"
not cause-and-effect).

" . . . 
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return.  Eath's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'
d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
*Toward* heaven, till the tree could bear no more,k
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

>From "Birches," by Robert Frost



Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)