Deaths in GR

[Thomas Vieth]

Well, first of all, superficiality can only be attributed to surfaces; and 
surfaces are of the appeared world. Don't confuse appearance (or even epitome, 
for that matter) with the underlying reality of being.

With regard to narrator(s) one has to keep in mind that there is such a thing as 
authorial design; that is to say it could help to every once in a while focus on 
matters such as juxtaposition. The whole construction (eg mandala-like narrative 
structure, contextual and/or structural juxtapositions, etc.) certainly reveals 
views from a metalevel. The multiplicity of voices in GR can on one level be a 
symbolization of the white noise of information theory. On another level this 
can be seen as satirical stock goods USED BY TRP AS AUTHOR for reasons not 
identical but reminiscent of certain acts by Robin Williams (eg in Good Morning 
Vietnam) where he steps aside, assumes a new posture and voice and for an 
instance is somebody else, yet everybody can see that it still is whatshisname 
(the character, not Williams, yet this character is also certainly IN STYLE) If 
that weren't the case you'd not be able to even remotely talk of a Pynchonean 
style.

But I'm slightly off the point. What I'm trying to say is that in the same way 
that paradoxes get solved on the next level up (as Douglas Hofstadter informs 
us) this is also true in many cases with TRP's writings. Radical pluralism 
(discussed in Wolgang Welsch where he talks about postmodernism w/regard to 
Lyotard) in my view inevitably leads to monism on a metalevel when thought all 
the way through. 
Thomas

----Original Message Follows----
Date:	Tue, 13 May 97 12:24 BST
From:	andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk
To:	"Thomas Vieth" <whoge at hotmail.com>
Cc:	pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Deaths in GR

Thomas Vieth writes:

> And thus it goes with the rest of everything in his writings that
> would on the surface require a dualistic stand point. . . .

`dualistic'. That's two right? Like Beethoven and Rossini, say? So is
it only superficial details which separate this duo?

> take, again, the issue of death. TRP has his narrator in GR say
> things like "moved to the other side"; when I remember correctly he
> even talks about something that he names "interface", in my view not
> referring to the computer term but to that interface that keeps
> ordinary consciousness from looking all the way through every day
> world's appearances. But when the narrator talks about "the other
> side", it seems clear that there is a transcendence at work, a
> lifting over and beyond duality.

Which `narrator' says this? Are you sure it is not actually one of the
characters - perhaps even a dead one such as Peter Sachsa, the
Control, or a possessed one like Carrol Eventyr, the Medium? The
changes of voice from narrator to character to another narrator to
chorus (ambiguity intended) to inner monologue to massed Dodo
conscisouness to whatever . . . imply a multitude of characters
telling us this story from a multitude of perspectives. To suggest
that one particular belief is common to all (or even most of) these
voices (let alone Pynchon's own opinion) is to presume continuity
where it probably does not exist.


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



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