GRGR(4) Re: Pynchon's Faith

[Doug Millison]

rj:
>I've agreed all along that the paragraphs Doug cited
>represented Pynchon's thoughts.

That was not at all clear in rj's earlier posts. The objection to my
original post turns out to center on a hair-splitting distinction between
"thoughts" and "beliefs". I used the terms loosely, interchangeably, as
people often do in everyday discourse; I  include "opinions" in the same
semantic neighborhood.

rj:
>My position is that the Times article on Sloth, though interesting in
>and of itself, does not disclose Pynchon's personal beliefs, about God
>and religion and time and technology in particular, nor about much of
>anything.

Why rj is so intent on dismissing TRP's NY Times essay -- one of a small
number of such pronouncements during TRP's long career -- as trivial, I
don't try to understand. Moving on. I don't mind defending what I say, but
it's a bit tiresome to have to defend blatant, perhaps intentional,
mischaracterizations of what I've said. In the post where I first quoted
the snippet in question, I said  "they seem to disclose something of what
TRP thinks about God and religion and time and technology". In my next
post, I asked "What might this snippet reveal about TRP's thoughts and
beliefs?" Later I said, "TRP has in fact expressed an opinion regarding God
and religion and time and technology, just as I said"  -- all through this
thread I've avoided the  "personal beliefs" formulation which rj has added
and demolished in a smashing rhetorical display.

At the same time, I've still seen no convincing reason for doubting that
TRP means what he says when he affirms a "long-ago age of faith and
miracle, when daily life really was the Holy Ghost visibly at work". Look
at his statement again:

"Sloth will continue to evolve away from its origins in the long-ago age of
faith and miracle, when daily life really was the Holy Ghost visibly at
work and time was a story, with a beginning, middle and end. Belief was
intense, engagement deep and
fatal.  The Christian God was near. Felt. Sloth -- defiant sorrow in the
face of God's good intentions -- was a deadly sin"

How to interpret that "really" where he states, "when daily life really was
the Holy Ghost visibly at work"? How to get around the finality of TRP's
unqualified use of the past tense of the verb "to be":  "daily life really
was"; "time was"; "Belief was"; "The Christian God was"; "Sloth . . . was a
deadly sin"?  I mean, he could have written, "seems to have been", or
"appears to have been" or "might have been" but instead he makes a string
of bald, unqualified assertions at the conclusion of his essay.

Does TRP personally believe that the Holy Ghost has been visibly at work in
the world? I don't know, and I'll bet my next paycheck that rj can't
provide a definitive answer to that question either. But it seems clear
from what TRP has to say in this essay -- bolstered by what we encounter in
his fiction --  that he accepts as historical fact that such faith animated
an earlier phase of history.

TRP addresses serious questions of religious faith and spirituality from
his earliest published writing. Religion and spirituality figure
prominently in GR; in his fictional recreation of an earlier period, the
masterpiece of his maturity -- M&D, which he was writing when he published
this NY Times essay -- TRP depicts life during the awkward transition
period between the age of faith and miracle and the age of reason. He
creates characters who struggle mightily as they try to balance personal
belief in Christ, resurrection, and sin with their beliefs as men of
science and reason. It seems safe to say that TRP considers (thinks,
believes) this an important area of inquiry. But, contrary to what you'd
expect from an atheist, TRP never does appear to come down definitively
either for or against religious faith. This leads me to suspect that he may
not be sure himself. In his fiction, he beautifully portrays an overarching
longing and desire for something more than the grim realities of earthly
existence; at the same time, he's certainly no apologist for religious
faith, and he savagely attacks religious institutions. At times he would
even appear to rail against God, blaming God for earthly ills (this seems
to be particularly apparent in VL, where TRP elaborates a Gnostic view of
Creation) -- a trait TRP would share with such literary figures as Job and
with such literary ancestors as Melville, a trait which often indicates
deep, albeit conflicted, faith in God.

Looking down benevolently from above,
Big Brother

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