deaths in GR&elsewhere

[Aaron Yeater]

hi.  i've been listening for a while, but this is my first 
contribution, if you can call it such...

i've been rereading vineland, and noticing the status of death 
therein.  some characters are 'unkillable,' like Vond, the 
Roadrunner, eluding death confidently.  others, from Takeshi on down, 
are in various 'stages' of death, the Thanatoids being "like death, 
only different."  No one is really dead-no one ever dies (like tv, 
kinda?)  perhaps what TRP presents is the end of death, the 
breakdown of the 1 and 0 into something more 
complicated--transformation.  but into what? is it salvation, 
immortality, the ultimate promise of the conspiracy?  or dissolution, 
entropy?  thus in GR people don't die, they disappear, cross over, 
form and reform, and if transformation does not take place (as von 
Braun tells us in the epigraph it always will) then there is 
dissolution, hopelessness, chaos.  and the pynchonian dilemma 
remains: will you be 'part of the system', choosing to sacrifice your 
will and individuality to the 'grand design' for salvation of your 
soul?  or will you fight cooptation by the conspiracy and in stead 
simply fall apart, dissolve, collapse, be crushed by pessimism? 

anyway, my $.02.  if inappropriate, i apologize in advance.

aaron yeater
kennedy school of guv