Missing parts

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

JULIUS RAPER wrote:
> 
> Terrance,
>         A good point.  But each addition to the body has to go somewhere
> and so, in the language of V. (the book), represents a falling away from
> the human that defines a decadence, another narcissistic attempt to swap
> the human for the inflated dreams of immortality. Is this not so?
>                                 Best, Jack


Yes, I agree with the first half of your statement-- "each
addition to the body has to go somewhere and so, in the
language of V. (the book), represents a falling away from
> the human that defines a decadence"--- but, while don't diagreeing with the second part, I'm not sure what it means. 

"What's automatism, Grovie?"  (S.L. TSI.188)
TF


> 
> On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > Pynchon seems more interested in added parts. This interest is evident in his
> > early work--betwixt V. and CL--"The Secret Integration." In said story we find
> > the Slothrops and Carl Barrington, an "imaginary" friend and double of Carl
> > McAfee. Carl is made of junk and all the "possibilities turned away from." He
> > is a robot of ballistics theory, science and invention, and following V.
> > becomes Increasing an Abstraction and Increasing Inanimate, until he is
> > scattered and abandoned "to the old estate's other attenuated ghosts." Sort of
> > like our American Rocket Man!
> >
> >