What hooked me on Pynchon...

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

On Sun, 27 Jul 1997, Meg Larson wrote:

> "Byron, as he burns on, sees more and more of this pattern.  He learns how
> to make contact with other kinds of electric appliances, in homes, in
> factories and out in the streets.  Each has something to tell him . . .
> Someday, he will know everything, and still be as impotent as before.  His
> youthful dreams of organizing all the bulbs in the world seem impossible
> now--the Grid is wide open, all messages can be overheard, and there are
> more than enough traitors out on the line.  Prophets traditionally don't
> last long--they are killed outright, or given an accident serious enough to
> make them stop and think, and most often they do pull back.  But on Byron
> has been visited an even better fate.  He is condemned to go on forever,
> knowing the truth and powerless to change anything.  No longer will he have
> to seek to get off the wheel.  His anger and frustration will grow without
> limit, and he will find himself, poor perverse bulb, enjoying it . . . "
> (655).
> 
> This is, mais oui, our dear Tyrone, n'est-ce pas? 

Or the unnamed narrator of Ellison's _Invisible Man_.  Right down to the
last light bulb, so to speak.  I'm nearly finished with IM, and I can't
help but to marvel at the scenes I feel must've influenced Pynchon.
There's the ubiquitous light bulb imagery, the grandfather's advice to
the narrator to become invisible by doing exactly what's expected of you
("Yes, Master, Yes Master"), the bringer of false hope with the glass eye,
etc.

I know this has little to do with why you were posting the passage, but
when I read "he is condemned to go on forever, knowing the truth but
powerless to change anything," I could do nothing but sit back and watch
the narratives (GR, V., and IM) mingle.

> fragmentation is due to his loss of interest in his quest, and the fact
> that, the more he learns the less it matters.  Slothrop was able to move
> around in the world of the Preterite because he was one of them, but as he
> acquired more info about his quest, he lost interest and lost his
> invisibility, or his insularity, perhaps?  When I was struggling mightily
> to make sense of _GR_, this passage finally brought it home, or at least
> shed some light on Slothrop.

As for Slothrop being a member of the Preterite, I have my doubts.  I
think Pynchon intended Slothrop to saddle the fence, because Preterite
means to be "passed over."  The standing of those "passed over" has
changed so much over the course of time; if the Angel of Death passed your
first born over because you had lambs' blood on your door, you're alright;
but if you were passed over by Jesus, you in a heap; if you're passed over
by a rocket, you're alright . . . You can see where I'm headed with this.
Slothrop was not passed over (though how he and the rocket were connected
remains a mystery), but he was not the "victim" of what was passing over
either.  So he is not of the Preterite . . . If that made no sense, I'll
try to get these ideas that've been wafting around my head unexpressed for
so long down on paper a little better.  

More for my sake than for yours.

Scott Kaufman
skaufm1 at tiger.lsu.edu