All That Is the Case

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

Paul suggests:
"Now, in the context of V., the sferics message is rather baleful; if the
world is everything that is the case, then the world can in principle not
be changed, since possibility has been evicted from the world by reason. In
other words, the genocide and debauchery upon which K. Mondaugen gazes is
the case, it has and will be the case, regardless of any intervention of
conscience or will or what have you. Entropy and thanatos rule absolutely.
This, I think, is one of TRP's central concerns in V., to present history
as this baleful death-march, this irreversible collapse into the inanimate,
in order to then call the positivist paradigm on the carpet and explode it
from within, using the weapons of language. Of course, this project also
informs GR. An oscillation between (infinite) resignation in the face of
the 'facts', and the 'leap of faith', the presentation of unactualized
possibility?"


I think you've hit the (metaphorical) nail on the (metonymic) head here.

Compare the final section of Chapter 3, which in its Robbe-Grillet-derived
extremely "objective" narration offers a similar point.  This is my take
indeed on P's career:

In V., the "exploding" of the inanimate seems doubtful.
In COL49, it seems like a possibility, but one that is remote and possibly
non-existent.
IN GR, it is definitely a possibility but beset by difficulties.
VINELAND, to me, is an exploration of some of those difficulties.


I know others on this list think otherwise!

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)