GRGR (8) Fire of Paradise

[ckaratnytsky at nypl.org]

     Joe Varo wrote in GRGR(8) Discussion Opener 13/1/97
     
     >So can we look at the DECD as some kind of allegory for Slothrop
     >going through some kind of hell in order to get to Paradise, only
     >to be turned back at the gates?
     
     > Don Larsson wrote in AH&TRP 13/1/97
     
     > To what extent are the quest-objects
     >of Pynchon's novels (and there is at least one in each of them) just
     >McGuffins?

     Then Mike Weaver added:
     
     >The Fire of Paradise is a potential quest object but that quest will, 
     >the narrator suggests, lead to places representative of times gone 
     >by, quiet, placid, untouched by the War, just what Slothrop could do 
     >with - later. So maybe its a missed exit the author is omniescently 
     >pointing to, the sweet a missed mcGuffin.

     I rather like all of this.  The reading of the DECD as a 
     quest/Christian allegory fits in well with the notion of Slothrop as a 
     redeeming -- or, failed (only his hairdresser knows for sure) --  
     Christ/Savior figure.  The term also recalls the purifying fire of 
     Dante's Purgatorio/Paradiso and follows the passage (which we did not 
     take Towards the door we never opened) to Pynchon-fave T.S.Eliot's 
     Four Quartets.
     
     Chris