Missing parts

[JULIUS RAPER]

Terrance,
 Well, Rachel's car is no Yeats, not even a Byzantine bird.  And there's a
reason, I imagine, why it's sub-rosa--motives hidden if actions not
repressed.  From MG's to Yoyodyne to V-1's and V-2's to ICBM's--not such a
big leap as it seems.  Or even from Right Lines upsetting the dragons in
new lands to ICBM's annihilating the old lands. All these projections and
projectiles seem much of a piece--and very different from Venus on a
Uffizi wall. 
				Cheers, Jack





On Mon, 23 Aug 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:

> 
> 
> JULIUS RAPER wrote:
> > 
> > Terrance,
> >         The last part means that it appears to be the narcissistic desire
> > for immortality that causes TRP's characters to try to replace frail human
> > parts with ivory or metal or stone--or to identify with seemingly
> > omnipotent weapons, abstract theories, and non-human robots.  Probably a
> > theme he picked up from Henry Adams, who calls it a primary drive, one
> > underlying sex and religion.
> 
> 					....and gather me
> 
>                             Into the artifice of eternity.
> 
>                                       IV
> 
>                          Once out of nature I shall never
> take
>                         My bodily form from any natural
> thing,
>                      But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths
> make
>                         Of hammered gold and gold enameling
>                          To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
>                          Or set upon a golden bough to sing
>                           To lords and ladies of Byzantium
>                        Of what is past, or passing, or to
> come.
> 
> 
>  
> >         Pynchon appears more interested in preserving the human element,
> > thereby leaving immortality to the artists who chance upon it, not by will
> > or programme but by gift and circumstance.
> >                                         JRR
> 
> Sorry, I'm so thick sometimes, I don't understand this idea.
> 
> "Love for an object, this was new to him. When he found out
> not long after this that the same thing was with Rachel and
> her MG, he had his first intelligence that something had
> been going on under the rose."	V..16	
> > 
> > On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
> > 
> > >
> > >
> > > 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!
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > >
>