GRGR[4]

[KAS]

That may be so, but I am still laughing over Constant Slothrop and his son
Variable.

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> From: kellner at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Cc: pynchon-l-digest at waste.org
> Subject: Re: GRGR[4]
> Date: Friday, November 01, 1996 3:46 PM
> 
> To continue the dialogue:
> It strikes me as significant that the section opens from the POV of a
dog,
> snifting Pointsman, ergo looking at the Behaviorist from the POV of its
> victim. It is also significant that Pointsman immediately steps into a
> toiltet boil, which he then drags around with him the rest of the (highly
> comic) scene, caught in the muck of excrement that... what? the
> behaviorist could explore, is trapped in, or?
> Pointsman/behaviorism is a major theme here and will be for the rest of
> the book. By chance I was re-reading a book I first read in graduate
> school Floyd W. Matson, THE BROKEN IMAGE, Man, Science, and Society
> (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1966 [1964]). The Anchor BOoks edition was
> readily available and its possible that TRP got part of his take on
> behaviorism from this book that has some excellent chapters on
behaviorism
> in politics relevant to GR and some chapters on the New Physics, the
> Quantam Revolution, the Microphysics of Life, etc. that might well have
> interested TRP (the book is also the first, as far as I know, to
introduce
> the concept of a "postmodern science" which breaks with mechanistic
> science; I would indeed be interested if there were earlier references to
> "postmodern science" as I am doing a study of this topic...
> A question: what was F.R.S.C. stand for, initials that follow the
> Introduction of the name of Mr. Edward W.A. Pointman, and who has some
> thoughts on his name initials...
> We then are introduced to Pointsman from Jessica's POV who sees him as "a
> mediaeval knight" and wonders: "What creature is he possibly here tonight
> to fight for his king?" and the rest of the book provides the answer.
> Jessica then wonders what she is doing out with Roger and these manaics
> and wishes she was home "cuddling someplace with Beaver this very minute,
> watching him light up his Pipe." And to respond to Andrew's query, I
> assume the Pipe is capitalized as a semiotic marker to signify Bourgeois
> Normality, or perhaps its a Freudian signifier of the safe bourgeoise
> phallus. Thus, it probably is and is not a pipe...
> I'll write more on this later, but I think all of the characters from the
> Scientific Establishment introduced here and elsewhere represent in their
> person's TRP's perceptions of embodiments of various scientific positions
> (behaviorism, statistical regularities, Freudianism, parapsychology,
> u.s.w.)...
> 
> Douglas Kellner, Dept of Philosophy, Univ of Texas, Austin, TX 78712
> kellner at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu  fax: 512 471-4806
> Web sites: Postmodern theory=
http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~kellner/pm/pm.html
> Critical theory= http://www.uta.edu/english/dab/illuminations/