Saved?

[Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt]

Don Larsson writes:

> About Pynchon & Redemption--
> While I agree with hg that TRP's notion of redemption is not "religious" in
> any Christian-right sense, it *is* deeply informed by his Catholic and
> Puritan backgrounds.  Just look at the terminology he uses all the way
> from "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" to COL49.

And beyond. Don't forget sister Rochelle's little re-writing of the 
myths of the fall, etc.
 
> In GR, in particular, one "religious" allusion that strikes again and again
> is the Old Testament notion of the Saving Remnant.  From Lot in Sodom
> through the Babylonian exile and on, the OT prophets continue to prophesy
> that even if Israel is destroyed, a small remnant will remain that will
> allow a new beginning.  
> 
> That theme is exemplified in GR by the Herero manta, "M'ba kyere" ("
> I am passed over") which--in a typical paradox--exemplifies Preterition
> (as in being "passed over" for election, promotion or whatever) but also
> Salvation from destruction (as in the Feast of Passover).
> 
> Little pockets of salvation spring up throughout GR, though their victories
> are often by chance and rarely more than provisional--the One Lemming is found
> and saved, Geli stops Tchitcherine's death urge, u.s.w.

Yet salvation focusses on the physical, it doesn't reduce this life 
to secondary status at all. There is the significant episode of the drunk 
Reverend Dr. Paul de la Nuit (p56), showing Mexico a more 'humane' 
(read: worldly) use of statistics, chance, probability theories, etc. 
Salvation means nothing if it is projected beyond death - I think TRP 
has quite a Niezschean attitude towards Christianity. Yet,  being a 
generous fellow, he doesn't dismiss someone merely because they are 
implicated in Their organized religions. Individual priests are not defined 
by their associations, but by their actions (reminds me of the Catholic 
priest in _At Play in the Fields of the Lord_). I have to disagree with 
Craig, though - I think TRP does dismiss Christianity (the "Baby 
Jesus Con Game" GR, 318). Maybe not in its entirety, but to the 
extent that it loses all meaning as individual religion. What is left 
to distinguish it from, say, the Chipmunk's boyscout oath once one 
jettisons notions of monotheism (oops, almost said phallogocentrism), 
denial of sexuality, Christ-fetishism, control of nature, etc. etc.? 
I think the kind of spirituality, or religiosity if you will, that 
TRP might prefer is the kind practised by pre-Christians, the kind 
burned at the stake by Christians. This would quite explicitly reject 
all the aspects of Christianity which have been in evidence over the 
last 2000 years - especially proselytizing. Here some Herero related 
quotes:

It was a simple choice for the Hereros, between two kinds of death: 
tribal death or Christian Death. Tribal death made sense. Christian 
death made none at all. It seemed an exercise they did not need. But 
to the Europeans, conned by their Baby Jesus Con Game, what they were 
witnessing among these Hereos was a mystery potent as that of the 
elephant graveyard, or the lemmings rushing into the sea (GR, 318).

At night down here, very often lately, Enzian will wake for no reason. 
Was it really Him, pierced Jesus, who came to lean over you? The 
white faggot's-dream body, the slender legs and soft gold European 
eyes... did you catch a glimpse of olive cock under the ragged loincloth, 
did you want to reach to lick at the sweat of his rough, his wooden 
bondage? Where is he, what part of our Zone tonight, damn him to the 
knob of that nervous imperial staff.... (GR, 324)

In reading TRP's texts I have always quite automatically read not 
just Christianity but the entire monotheist Judeo/Christian/Islamic 
'diaspora' (as well as its precursors) as deeply integrated into Their 
structures - to the extent of forming the oldest and most prominent of 
three or four pillars. I'd be interested in arguments to the contrary.

hg
hag at iafrica.com