MDMD(1):Euphroe

[Scott Badger]

jporter wrote:
> 
> >I know this is similar to Jody's comment, but
> 
> But you probably said it better!

No, no, you said it better!...

<snip>
> >Like the
> >awning between light and dark, or storm and shelter, Hepsie holds a
> >false, or logically impossible, position between opposed states or
> >points.
> 
> Hepsie subsumes logic. Her truth is greater than that which can be reached
> logically. she is a young and full of cheer, but remains so only as an
> archetype. Yet as an archetype she is also ancient and accessible to all.
> All notions suggested by Pynchon's choice of the word euphroe.
> 
> and may You stay...forever young,
> 
> jody

That too, but what I meant by "logically impossible" is this; A frequent
Pynchon theme is the idea of "in-between".  That is, what happens at the
point, cusp, interface, etc. between two paired and opposite states. 
Take, for example, a light going from on to off (or vice versa).  If
time is a continuum then at some point, logically, the light must be
simultaneously on and off, or neither on or off (We can go directly from
one state to the other if time, as in calculus, is a series of smallest
possible segments, but then causality goes out the window).  Hepsie,
then, is a manifestation of this paradox - her existence is as necessary
as it is impossible.

Thinking that we'd better catch up with the rest of the class....How
'bout those Euphroes on page 53?

s