(Fwd) Pirate's Gift

[Aaron Yeater]

>  This is my first missive to this group-speak on Pynchon so here it goes:
Welcome!

> The one thing that struck in my mind was Pirate's dream in the 
> beginning-could one make the claim that the whole book, in effect, is 
>Pirate's dream; him being a fantasy surrogate and all; and if he is being 
> "run by them", just whose dream is he dreaming at the beginning? Could 
> this dream be a symbol of ultimate rebellion to reality (forgive me that 
> phrase) or a sinister ploy by Them? 

I, for one, like it.  It satisfyingly explains Pirate's 'passiveness' 
until the end--he is the "observer" of this other dream, the manager 
of it's disparate parts in stodgy bureaucratic fashion for 'them' who 
need the dream, or the dreamer, for some larger scheme (of which, of 
course, even they are only part...), but when it rebels against his 
remaining moral sense (and in this Pirate reminds me of Porpentine 
from "Under the Rose")  he makes a traditionally heroic last stand, 
inserting himself into the dream, trying to save it, redeem it, make 
it "right again".  He fails of course, Slothrop falls apart, the 
world falls apart, their plot keeps chugging along, uninterrupted.  

Again, i think there are layers of self-criticism and self-awareness 
in GR of pynchon as author, as puppetmaster, and of the "conspiracy 
of meaning" that is a narrative.  TRP sees the problem in being in 
author, in creating a narrative, in managing the dreams of even 
themselves.  and so, being self-aware, he can only treat himself with 
irony, giving himself a satirically heroic character like Pirate to 
"represent" him there.

thanks for helping me waste time at work, everybody

aaron
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"The world is all that is the case"
                  Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus