MDMD (1) and Vineland

[Thomas Vieth]

veryniceveryniceverynice!!!! When I first read that passage in M&D I 
thought hm why is this familiar and I thought oh it's a salient feature 
of his style. Now I know more.Thank you

Thomas Vieth
Down with Triolahidi
Long live Hollerodullyo


----Original Message Follows----
Date:	Mon, 9 Jun 1997 23:56:50 -0500 (CDT)
To:	pynchon-l at waste.org
From:	amazing at mail.utexas.edu (dennis grace)
Subject: MDMD (1) and Vineland
Just a thought.  Freensi Gates (Vineland) ponders the BIG computer:
"If patterns of ones and zeros were "like" patterns of human lives and
deaths, if everything about an individual could be represented by a long
string of lives and deaths? It would have to be up one level at 
least--an
angel, a minor god, something in a UFO.  It would take eight human lives 
and
deaths just to form one character in this being's name--its dossier 
might
take up a considerable piece of the history of the world.  We are digits 
in
God's computer, . . ." (90).
Now in M&D we see Ethelmer pondering upon Wade LeSpark's Fortune, noting 
"If
there are Account -books in which casualties are the Units of Exchange,
then, . . . , his Uncle is deeply in Arrears" (31).
So what's the computer/Account-book?  Karma?  I'm thinking it's America.
dgg
_____________________________
Dennis Grace
University of Texas at Austin
English Department
Recovering Medievalist
The pursuit of truth, not of facts, is the business of fiction.
                                            --Oakley Hall



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