GRGR3: Discussion Opener for Section 3

[Craig Clark]

Murthy Yenamandra writes:
> Both touch on something that I was struggling to say in my previous
> posts, but didn't manage to. It is that nice progression of the
> Situation in V->COL49->GR->Vineland: inkling of the other, proto-Them ->
> "Do They exist or am I imagining this whole thing?" -> "Well, here They
> are and what do We do about it?" -> "Hey, whose side are We on?"
> (Of course, we'll ignore the majority(?) opinion on this list that
> Vineland is a senile aberration from the Master and that COL49 contains
> all :-))
 
> The irony of the situation is that once the "system" is in place, you
> don't need all-powerful hands, visible or invisible, to control the
> proceedings. We are at the point where we don't exactly resist, but
> lend our own hands and make up the great 'invisible hand'. Even in GR,
> one can see the cooptation in progress - Prentice craving Their
> approval even while wondering why he wants it, Roger cooperating with
> Pointsman and unsure about the reasons why he does. The painful fact is
> that each one of Us would go over to Their side when we're offered that
> exact thing that we crave and They know what our innermost fantasies are
> - in fact, in spite of our illusion that We are separate from Them,
> aren't We on the same side?

This is of course exactly what happens to the Counterforce, isn't it? 
I don't have the full text to hand, but this excerpt is from much later in 
the novel, just as Roger Mexico and Pig Bodine are about to upset some 
dinner guests:
    "They [the Counterforce] are as schizoid, as double-minded in the 
      massive presence of money, as any of the rest of us, and that's the
      hard fact... We do know what's going on, and we let it go on. 
      As long as we can see them, stare at them, those massively monied, 
      once in a  while. As long as they allow us a glimpse, however rarely. 
      We need that. And how they know it... which is worse: living on as 
      Their pet, or death? It is not a question he has ever imaginbed 
      himself asking seriously. It has come by surprise, but there's no 
      sending it away now, he really does have to decide, and soon enough, 
      plausibly soon, to feel the terror in his bowels. Terror he cannot 
      think away. He has to choose between his life and his death. Letting 
      it sit for a while is no compromise, but a decision to live, on Their 
      terms..."

The failure of the Counterforce - who decide, for the most part, to 
live on as Their pets - is probably the single bleakest concept in 
the entire novel, but I think it's a crucial bridge to _Vinelands_, 
in which the Counterforce lives on as Their freakshow, jumping through 
plate-glass windows to qualify for government grants.

All this stuff is of singular relevance to what's happening in South 
Africa, by the way, foax. Take a popular liberation movement with 
strong socialist leanings and put them in power and guess what 
happens? They vote themselves massive salary increases, acquire lots 
of fast cars and big houses, and abandon the essentially socialist 
Reconstruction and Development Plan with which they campaigned for 
office in 1994 in favour of promoting Big Business which will trickle 
wealth down to the poor. A recent newspaper caricature which depicted 
our Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, as Maggie Thatcher, was about 
right - Manuel's economic policies would have done Maggot Hatcher or 
Ronald Ray Gun proud.

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"

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"