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

[matthew.percy at utoronto.ca]

> 
> 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

The Skippy section occurs with the discussion of "Happyville", the 
emptiness of San Narciso carried to a dystopic extreme.

> 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?
> 
Funny you should ask - I've been looking for the same thing, comparisons 
b/w Mr. Pynchon and cyberpunk, and Philip K. Dick.  Nothing on Philip 
Dick,m but plenty of discussion of Cyberpunk and Pynchon in McHale's 
_Constructing Postmodernism_; Pynchon merits a few mentions as a 
precursor of cyberpunk in Douglas 
Kellner's chapter on cyberpunk in __Media Culture_...a bunch of articles 
on the MLA database.  Actually, the most interesting stuff I've found on 
the blurring line "between the human and the simulacrum (robot or 
android)" in Pynchon is in Jameson's _The Geopolitical Aesthetic_, where 
Pynchon gets around 10pp of discussion, mostly concerning San Narciso 
(the city as technology) and computers/the Reagan era in _Vineland_.

Personally, I've always thought a comparison b/w Pynchon and J.G. Ballard 
would be most interesting, esp. since the two discuss very similar 
themes.  Of course, Pynchon seems to retain a certain morality which 
Ballard seems to eschew...i.e. Baudrillard's comment that "nowhere [in 
Crash] does that moral gaze surface": Ballard's chars. tend to be 
completely dehumanized, whereas Pynchon's still contain the possibility 
of redemption (even Blicero).

- Matt