MDMD(2): Deflation and Friendship flip-flop

[Doug Millison]

Throughout Pynchon's work runs the idea that things don't have to be
either/or, they can be both/and -- connect up the dots in a dizzying array
of connections and conspiracies, none of them are true, they're all true.
It also seems clear, to me, that he says the sum is bigger than the parts,
and I think in his novels you can find evidence to support that he comes
down on the side of spirit, the unknown, the mystical (thinking of the song
"They never taught anyone to sing....'There is a Hand to turn the
time....And a Soul in ev'ry stone'" at the end of GR) as ultimately
including, surpassing the engineering/scientific/rational. But I wonder, do
the Pynchon scholars on this list believe that close examination of his
texts and allusions/references reveals that Pynchon systematically
undercuts both sides of this equation, letting it balance out to zero,
leaving open all the possibilities or none, rather than coming down on one
side or the other?

Thanks,
Doug


At 2:44 PM 7/3/97, andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk wrote:
>Thomas Vieth writes:
>> WRT Andrew's remarks on the occult:
>
>> I think you're on the wrong track there. My view is that TRP is using it
>> for its face value; that is, for is dichotomy of nature and its
>> irrationality and technocracy and its rationality. Again - we had a
>> similar thread before, remember - I feel what he is telling us is to
>> overcome this epistemological dichotomy. He takes both sides serious and
>> seems to tell us that when we only take one side serious we're in
>> trouble.
>
>I don't believe that Pynchon is for one minute suggesting that we
>would be better off conducting our affairs on the basis of astrology
>rather than, say, physics. Look what that did for Himmler and
>Hitler. But he *is* telling us that there is nothing forcing us to use
>physics in place of astrology other than our desire to use one or the
>other. The world does not force either upon us, we choose to apply one
>or other (or both) system(s) to the world for our own good reasons -
>`good' here being something we (individually and collectively - and
>there is yet another tension we have to resolve) determine the sense
>of.
>
>
>Andrew Dinn
>-----------
>We drank the blood of our enemies.
>The blood of our friends, we cherished.


D O U G  M I L L I S O N ||||||||||||| millison at online-journalist.com
         "The Metropolis strives to reach a mythical point
          where the world is completely fabricated by man,
          so that it absolutely coincides with his desires."
                                              --Rem Koolhaas