[2]doktor's pre(in)scriptions

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

doktor at primenet.com writes:

> So it seems we want the same thing from a book: synthesis between
> its emotional and its intellectual appeal.  And emotional appeal is
> such a personal thing; we can't tell each other what to feel.  Of
> the three "losses" you name, the only one that resonated in my gut
> at all was Roger losing Jessica.  That, to me, was not enough of an
> emotional zinger to justify all those hundreds of pages.

If you don't also want fine writing then you are missing out on GR's
most important aspect. And I'd say that emotional and intellectual
appeal are more to do with fine writing than anything else,
particularly the mere `personal'. Form not content is what makes
Gravity's Rainbow so unique and what makes its emotional and
intellectual appeal that much deeper than TCOL49.

And if it is only Roger losing Jess which appealed to your gut then I
think you have missed the point somewhat. Roger's losing Jess is not
jsut a simple matter of the heart. He's losing much more than a
short-term wartime relationship or even the love of his life. As he
says at the end of part 1 `You're catching the war. It's infecting you
and I don't know how to keep it away. Oh Jess. Jessica. Don't leave
me.' That's a man losing faith in the world, the flesh and the word, a
man who has died to this world but does not (yet?) know how to leave
it for the next one. The stakes are much higher than your gut can
register and I suggest you engage with all your intellect next time.

> I also agree with your approach to getting through GR; I started the
> book twice before I finally decided not to try to figure things out
> as I was going along, and just let Pynchon's elliptical prose wash
> over me.  GR may be a book that _demands_ surrender of the rational
> self, or what I think zen devotees call "monkey mind."  For me,
> though, it's this surrender that makes me detach emotionally from
> the novel; if I'm not exactly sure what's happening or why, it's
> hard for me to empathize with the characters.  This is probably one
> of Pynchon's points: don't try to figure everything out, just remain
> human.  Keep cool, but care.

What's with all this surrender crapola? Yes, Pynchon doesn't expect
you to figure everything out and granted there may be things in the
book which cannot be `figured out' but your approach is off tack right
from the start and your conclusion is even more screwy. If you had
read GR more carefully than your comments seem to indicate you would
realise that much of what is in the book can be `figured out'. Not as
in a riddle - because it certainly is not a riddle, unlike the more
simple-minded novel you have chosen to champion. No, `figured out' as
in you read and reread the text, you correlate the various
cross-references, you build up a picture of who is speaking when and
where to whom and in what time-frame, you look up all the big words
you don't know in an encyclopaedia and a dictionary and then follow up
by reading the various secondary references Pychon either mentions by
name or indicates with a nod. Lo and behold you realise that it's a
Ulysses, an incredibly (over)structured book. All sorts of things in
it placed very carefully and with great purpose. And much more
coherence and continuity to the narrative/plot than appears at first
reading.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.