GR the Epic / Mock-Epic

[Joel Dinerstein]

Bilge Ebiri writes:

        >The interplay of the epic and the mock-epic poles of GR can also
lead to many
        >other intriguing questions:  For instance, if it *is* an epic,
then for what
        >particular race or civilization or society is it providing a
creation myth?
        > If it is a mock-epic, is it perhaps depicting the destruction
(hint-hint) of
        >a civilization, rather than the burgeoning of one?  Or could it be
both -- a
        >creation and a destruction all rolled up in one big rocket?

It's both, methinks, as you seems to think too.  That's why the
hero/anti-hero disintegrates.

The creation myth is for the new multi-cultural not-so-Western civilization
made up of average Joes and average Tyrones; the destruction myth is that
of the master-race believing "White Man" (Weissman), who blows up the world
(and his fantasies) rather than *knot into* the rich muck from which a
de-tribalized humanity might grow.

The great *victor* of World War Two was diversity over monoculture.  So it
is that  the white German rocket that goes up on page one comes down on all
our heads on the last page ("put your knees between your legs and kiss your
arse goodbye," sez the mock Puritan come the apocalypse).  In the ensuing
800 pages, the most positive characters -- the most human and humane ones
-- are those who adapt their lives and characters to being *In the Zone*
and not pre-judging those who live on the Black Market side of life
(racially, economically or what-have-you).

And although this is getting *way* ahead of ourselves... epic-wise, I see
GR operating this a-way:  the rocket-questers are Weissman (WhiteMan), the
Zone-Hereros, and Slothrop.... i.e., the Teutonic White North Man *bent* on
technological salvation, the South-West Africans trying to put themselves
together again in a new Westernized land, and Slothrop the American -- the
middle-ground -- in whose country various sets of Africans, various sets of
Indians and various sets of Europeans have been acculturatin',
enculturatin' and cross-pollinatin' for 450 years. And the rocket named
00000 is the new beginning.....

Pynchon uses the European / African split to get to the heart of
American-style racial issues (purity, fear, tribalism).  As I've said
before, Pynchon is a late-breaking Beat writer.  Unlike the other Beat
writers, Pynchon was truly forged in the 1960s, not the 1930s or 1940s or
1950s.   Pynchon knew race was the central dilemma of American society and
he puts Slothrop, the "holy fool" -- a favorite phrase of admiration among
all the Beats -- on the case.  At first, Pynchon has a conventional Beat
take on "The Negro"  (see his comments on Lightnin' Hopkins in the opening
essay to *Slow Learner*):  so in V., Pynchon gives us McClintic Sphere, a
cool&groovy&tolerant& romanticized "new" human being himself, based in part
on Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman.  But race literally exploded onto
the American scene in the mid-1960s and Pynchon writes that article in the
New York Times Sunday Magazine about the 1965 Los Angeles riots,  "Journey
Into The Mind of Watts" -- a heartfelt sociological attempt to understand
the rage of African-Americans. So we know he was working on it.

But by the time GR is done (Pynchon's already researching it at the time),
he has transcended the bullshit sociological explanations of the American
race game and instead chosen to investigate core European and African
cultural and cosmological differences.  So in GR, he goes to the source:
he investigates the Europe / Africa interface and rams the American battle
up Slothrop's arse.  Pynchon takes Weissman to his endgame and shows the
homeless Africans attaching themselves to the promise of the rocket and
technology.  Pynchon makes it a major part of Slothrop's quest / anti-quest
.. and.. heroic journey / anti-heroic journey ...   to follow the "white"
and "black" quests around (and all the other ones too) in order that he
might create a new identity from being in the zone  between
"true-north-white" and "true-south-black* poles....an American dream if
ever there was one.

If his "white" identity is dead, Slothrop will need a new one.  One thing
we see our hero do in the zone is try on some new identities -- all heroic,
all mock-heroic.  Slothrop's lookin' for a new way to be and a new myth to
be in.  SO:  Hail, Plasticman; hail, Rocketman; hail, Pig-man; hail,
Dope-man.  Hail the new language of jive -- "Hey Gate, got any opiate?" --
because we need a new language for a new de-tribalized world.  And hail all
the layers of muck on Slothrop's desk, the inorganic analogue to the rich
loamy soil that produced Pirate's bananas.

>From such detritus do we -- as Americans -- as humans -- create ourselves
in the brave new world.  Thank the holy fools.


Joel Dinerstein