What's it all about?

[Paul Mackin]

You could say that if death is the theme of the novel then the DEFEAT
(somehow) of death, something analogous to resurrection of the body and
life everlasting in the Christian scheme of things, OUGHT to be the
meta-theme. So we must ask the question: Is the promise of Salvation at
at all visible in Gravity's Rainbow. I wouldn't say no right off the
bat, even though there is that knotty little  problem of everyone's being
labelled preterite and passed over. But perhaps there is some second
selection process through which the sheep who were once passed over can
yet be elected.  In Proust defeat of death is better spelled out, at least
for genius writers whose words will live forever. M's fear of death is
intimately tied to his fear he will not finish his book. 


A difference in Pynchon is that his book doesn't seem to be  
autobiographical. Because of this, do we have a harder time feeling
directly his own hopes and fears? What his answers to the problem of
death might be. We do know or think we know that he believes that Death
(and by extension meta-death) is the only thing worth writing about. (not
in so many words but something to that effect)
			
Please excuse all the generalities. It's the surface texture of the novel
that gives us pleasure. But the skeleton is also discernible. 

			P. 

On Sun, 11 Jul 1999, Doug Millison wrote:

> At 10:21 AM -0400 7/11/99, Paul Mackin wrote:
> > the Central
> >Office in downtown Rainbowville is indisputably occupied by Old Mr.
> >Fuckin' Death hisself by order of that famous JUDGEMENT FROM WHICH THERE
> >IS NO APPEAL or in the words of another P who was no slouch at the long
> >multilayered death-obsessed novel either ". . . une realite qui n'etait
> >pas faite pour moi, contre laquelle il n'y avait pas de recours .  . . "
> >(p. 221-2, Combray)
> 
> Oh, I don't know. Just because there are references to death throughout GR,
> that doesn't mean death is "central" to the novel, does it? Not central in
> the way death is central to, say, Thomas  Lynch's recent _The Undertaking :
> Life Studies from the Dismal Trade_, for example. All of the GR's
> characters, after all, are alive, either on this side or the other of
> death's "interface" ("those souls across the interface, those we call the
> dead" 147.2).  Why not argue that the ubiquitous references to life and
> living -- not to mention the object lesson of TRP's novel itself,  a
> product of his life and energies -- make life what GR is "about"?  You can
> of course make the same argument for Proust's A la recherche du temps
> perdu, a novel that is packed with people and  running over with life.
> 
> Might as well say GR is about the Holocaust, don't you think?
> 
> Still calling the glass half full,
> Doug
> 
> d o u g  m i l l i s o n  http://www.online-journalist.com
>