Sickness Unto Death

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

susan observes:
"Rachael, who seems to be a Good Guy, fights tooth & nail to
prevent Esther's abortion...  I mean, pitching in your
spare change to help fund a bombing or massacre wouldnt be so
impressive, would it?
 
I'd like to draw a line, somehow, that marks difference between
WSC and Foppl's crowd, later, but all i can see is differences
in degree, not in kind."


Indeed, and one ought to look at V. in the context of P's early short stories,
especially MERCY AND MORTALITY IN VIENNA and ENTROPY.  Foppl's group and the
WSC are engaged in those decadent parties that recur in Pynchon's fiction
through the sailing party on the Anubis in GR.  Another thing to watch for
that echoes from "Entropy" is the dichotomy of the Hothouse and the Street.

These represent the twin poles of entropic action--an enclosed system that
is ultimately doomed to wind down of its own inertia and the diffuse
anarchism that results in the same chaos.

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)