Byron the Bulb, Blade Runner and other topics (was Re: Death)

[Craig Clark]

Eric Alan Weinstein <E.A.Weinstein at qmw.ac.uk> writes:

>  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 character, Byron the Bulb, is implicated
> in this. I'm not sure. But it might be instrutive to think on it.

Matthew percy replies:
> I've always thought of Byron as being a metaphor for the reclamation of 
> the inanimate/sterile objects of late-capitalism- an attempt by Pynchon 
> to restore the human into our world (a desire also reflected by The 
> Counterforce).   Most of Section 4 seems to be predicated on the maxim 
> "using their tools for our purposes" in a carnivalesque (Bakhtinian) moment-
> i.e. Steve Edelman and the Kazoos at the Orhpeus theatre of Richard M. 
> Zhlubb.  Obviously, this over-simplifies just a litte, but works pretty well
> esp . with the Orpheus iconogrpahy).

Byron's story is of course also an examination of the theme of 
"planned obsolesence", one of the major strategies whereby capitalism 
gets us to purchase commodities: what we buy wears out so we have to 
buy more of the same. Byron is of course a fantasy of saying "fuck 
you!" to this strategy, as well as a link into the realm of 
anti-capitalist urban legendry, where tales of patents for everlasting 
light-bulbs being suppressed by the manufacturers rub shoulders 
alongside tales of repressing patents for motor vehicle engines that 
run off water or give you a thousand miles to the gallon.

This theme crops up from time to time throughout _GR_: I recall 
"Skippy" having a discussion with a rather sinister narrative voice 
on the subject, but don't have the text on hand to be more specific. 
For a take on the same theme which links to Eric's question, check
out Ridley Scott's _Blade Runner_, as well as David Harvey's discussion 
of this theme in the movie, in a chapter in his book _The Condition 
of Post-Modernity_. The chapter compares _Blade Runner_ and Wim
Wenders' _Wings of  Desire_. Scott's "replicants" are of course a labour
force which is itself subject to planned obsolesence, and can be 
viewed as the ultimate paranoid extrapolation of the idea: we can 
build humans who will only last four years and then be have to be 
replaced! The relevance of this theme to _GR_, with its evocation of 
the human cost of developing and deploying the V-2 rocket, and indeed 
with its overarching concern (a bad pun: I'm truly sorry) for the 
question of how human beings become subservient to the needs of 
capitalist technological advancement, is obvious. 

I suppose now is as fine a time as any to ask if anyone agrees with me
that Pynchon was influenced by Philip K Dick (upon whose _Do 
Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?_ _Blade Runner_ was based). In 
many of Dick's works, the boundary line between the human and the 
simulacrum (robot or android) is blurred in the extreme, and when I 
first read _V._ I was struck by the Dickian elements in Pynchon's 
treatment of _V._'s gradual replacement by a prosthesis of herself. 
Any ideas, or examples of direct allusions by Pynchon to Dick?







Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"