Pynchon and the postmodern

[Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt]

Heikki writes:
 
> What you say in the last paragraph about Pynchon has equaled 
> postmodernism to many, whereas what you say about postmodernism
> equals actually epochalism, which in its "postmodenist" disguise
> only hides the quite "modern" idea of favorable progress from stage
> to stage.
> 
> Admittedly, there are many "postmodernists" who are crypto-modernists
> (e.g. Baudrillard, Lyotard) -- they just want to replace modern grand
> narratives with newer and cuter grand narratives, Hegelianism with
> anti-Hegelianism, canonism with marginalism, continuity with
> ruptures, totalities with fragmentations, elitism with carnivalism.
> 
> To start learning to talk otherwise is, of course, very hard. What
> Derrida says is quite engrossing:
> "We must avoid the temptation of supposing that what occurs today somehow 
> pre-existed in a latent form merely waiting to be unfolded or explicated. 
> Such thinking also conceives history as an evolutionary development and 
> excludes crucial notions of rupture and mutation in history. My own 
> conviction is that we must maintain two contradictory affirmations at the 
> same time. On the one hand, we affirm the existense of ruptures in 
> history, and on the other we affirm that these ruptures produce gaps or 
> faults in which the most hidden and forgotten archives can emerge and 
> recur and work through history."
> (In Kearney, Richard (ed.): Dialogues with Contemporary Continental
> Thinkers: 113)
> 
> I'll probably try to check out in the future if what JD says makes any 
> sense re TP. What do you think? 

At a cursory glance I can't quite make out what JD is up to in the 
above quote. Notions of "history as an evolutionary development" most 
certainly do _not_ "exclude crucial notions of rupture and 
mutation"  which then "produce gaps or faults in which the most hidden 
and forgotten archives can emerge and recur and work through 
history". In a sense, this is actually the crux of evolutionary theory! 
(Maybe JD simply does not understand 'evolution'?) It seems to me that these 
"hidden archives" are like dormant genes (in this case, memes) which 
can emerge during times of rupture, should this prove favourable - or 
are simply random mutation as common in evolution. JD in 
the above quote seems to be quite unequivocally declaring his 
allegiance to some form of  'evolutionary historicism', while 
mistaking his position for a critique of same. (I admit to not being 
the greatest expert on JD, but if the above quote is typical, I wonder 
what all the 'fuss' is about. Any 'real' experts out there?)

As re. Pynchon: In GR he posits WW2 as a moment of change, as a type 
of phase-change in history during which 'abnormal' things may occur. 
(I.e. the ultraparadoxical phase.) Yet like the hidden archives JD mentions 
the 'things' that may occur do not appear out of thin air, but rather are 
random mutations of existing structures, memes, identities, 
'realities'. In addition, there is a movement always towards the 
inanimate, which however in no way simplistically echoes the entropy 
principle. (Pynchon's critique of 'us' is that we are, at least 
potentially, 'free' from entropy, yet perversely are embarked on a 
course of "death-transfigured" rather than from death to rebirth, as 
in nature - GR, 167/7)

>                                            - Anyway, when it comes to Bakhtinian 
> carnivalism's and Joycean modernism's self-conceptions, and Pynchon's 
> relation to them, I tried to put in my two cents, or rather, nine 
> Finnish pence, in an  article called "'The  Feathery Rilke Mustaches and 
> Porky Pig Tattoo on  Stomach': High and Low  Pressures in _GR_
[snip]
>                  But anyway: my advice to those who haven't read my
> essay from the page yet but might get an odd urge to read it: ignore it 
> -- for the time being. Alternatively, I can snail-mail the much more 
> satisfying version to anyone interested. Just tell me.)

How about E-mail? If so, count me in, please.
 
> Just about to leave for Vancouver via Seattle, and from there to 
> Berlin and Poznan in Poland, and coming back to Finland in two weeks
> time, and back in touch at the turn of the month, 
> 
> Heikki

Lucky you. Have a nice trip. (Don't you need a research assistant, 
personal secretary, chauffeur or luggage carrier to accompany you on 
your strenuous trips? I'm available at a discount - the South African 
rand being what is is... :-)

hg
hag at iafrica.com