Death

[Eric Alan Weinstein]

Of couse the Life/Death theme is never lost
> > entirely.                                P.
> Yeah, I completely agree with you here(ro) on Life/Death.  It's a binary
> that is never lost, although it radically changes from _v._ to _GR_.  I'm
> thinking about that quasi-ironic statement " Our mission is to promote death"
> in Section 4 of _GR_... it would definitely seem that death is "doubled"
> within _GR_ in the sense that death is both the emptiness of Blicero and
> a possibility of redemption (Orpheus).  Not to mention that Pynchon seems
> to be trying to restore a validity to death, trying to give it a (moral)
> meaning again in an age of spectacle where "the inanimate has replaced
> the flesh" (V.).
> -matt**********************************************************************
Eric replies:

     Pynchon read Evelan Waugh's death-cult satire "The Loved One" deeply.
There are any number of references to it in his works. (For ex---The last
sentance of CL49 is a paradoy of the last sentance of "The Loved One.")

 Death does a great deal of complex work in Pynchon; and it modulates
 from context to context enourmously. I am tempted to think of William James
metaphore of work with language as taking place in a stream which indicates,
offering no answer, but the directon of more work. For the dialectics of death,
the inanimate, sterility and power are in constant and facinating evolution
here. Pardon the pun, but I'm sure it would be productive of a worthy study.

 It is however clear enough that central to Pynchon is the recognition
that death and life are part of the natural cycle; one is needful to the other. 
The desire for trancendence or immortality in the same state of being is
tied deep to troupes of inanimate mecanistic assembly, abuse of power, 
anti-humanism, facism.

      I wonder how my favourite charecter, Byron the Bulb, is implicated
in this. I'm not sure. But it might be instrutive to think on it.

Eric Alan Weinstein
Centre For English Studies
University Of London
E.A.Weinstein at qmw.ac.uk