Conditioning and Paranoia (was Re: GRGR3: Discussion Opener for

[Craig Clark]

Murthy Yenamandra wrote:
 
> Slothrop is not the only one who is conditioned - Pirate is no less conditioned 
> by where he is born and how he is brought up.

Murthy old pal, I think you've crystallised for me something here 
which makes _GR_ stand out head and shoulders above other TRP textx, 
and that is the nature of the paranoia in the novel. In _V._ and 
_CoL49_, the text is ambiguous about the existence of The Conspiracy, 
and much of the power of these novels is the way in which they evoke 
simultaneously a deep dread lest the Conspiracy exists, and an 
equally deep dread lest there be no Conspiracy (is it Fausto 
Maijstral who says that "there is more coincidence in life than one 
can admit to and still remain sane", or words to that effect?).

I believe that _GR_ goes further. Yes, Slothrop does experience 
"anti-paranoia" late in the novel: "Either They have put him here
for a reason, or he's just here. He isn't sure that he wouldn't, actually,
rather have that *reason*..."  But _GR_ is not a novel about "Do 
They exist or do They not exist?" in the way that Pynchon's earlier
novels were about "Does V/Tristero exist or does V/Tristero not exist?" 

They clearly exist, we even meet two of Their lower functionaries (in the
final pages of section 3). In this way _GR_ looks forwards to _Vinelands_, 
in which there is no One Big Conspiracy at all, except that it depicts an
America in which paranoia is part of the social fabric.

Murthy's suggestion that Pirate is conditioned is part of this idea, 
I think. It doesn't really matter if They have conditioned Slothrop 
to get a hard-on in the presence of Mystery Stimulus X or not. It 
doesn't really matter either whether or not Slothrop's hard-ons have 
anything to do with the V-2 rocket strikes. These are merely extreme 
examples of what They do to all of us. They have controlled and manipulated
all of us in more subtle and complex ways - our every action as part of our 
society (which is Their society, created by and serving Them) is a conditioned
response to the stimuli which They feed us through socialisation and the 
media (and again, let's not forget TRP's scathing attack on the Toob
in _Vinelands_).

This also expands the focus of the novel way beyond being a novel 
about chasing V-2 rocket technology in post-war Europe to being a 
novel about the issues of control, manipulation, power, socialisation, 
brainwashing etc in the Twentieth century world. It is, I hope, 
superfluous to add that _GR_ is on the side of radical freedom - not 
the freedom to be a consumer of the culture of Their world, but 
freedom to create Our own.



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"