Prosthetic Paradise (was Re: pynchon-l-digest V2 #1012

[rj]

TF:
> OK, but this reader-orientated approach, very popular
> today,  is only one approach. And while those that advocate
> this approach are quick to dismiss other approaches that
> claim privilege, the reader-orientated approach refuses to
> acknowledge that it too claims privilege, right?

Well, no, such an approach can comfortably accommodate all the other
approaches within its gambit. But I guess in a sense it does also
reclaim the individual reader's privilege, so that, rather than turning
Pynchon's fiction into some esoteric board game for which only one
critic holds the answer sheet -- as the critic in question (and you?)
would have it -- your common and/or garden p-lister type can have a shot
at interpretation and analysis of the literary text as well.
Democratisation of the reading process, you see.

But, you've got it all back to front anyway. The process of literary
communication has never been a one way conduit. It is a fallacy to
insist that it is. The meaning event transfer is miraculous and unique
at each new manifestation. Pynchon's literary mode recognises and
foregrounds the absolute ambivalence of the word-as-text.

> it seems odd that you quote
> Hite, while attacking others, unnamed, for doing what she
> does in her book. Would you like examples? Or is this not an
> important point?

"Attacking"?! It's neither odd nor germane as far as I'm concerned but,
hey, you knock yourself out.

best


CLEARING THE BACKLOG

> Are you claiming that Technology does not exist without the
> human intent that drives it? 

Er. No.
 
> Would you also say that "nature" is a meaningless term apart
> from our will to define it? 

Um.

> How can a hammer use a man? Do you mean man using machines
> to use men?

Isn't a man using a hammer the definition of a simple machine? Isn't the
equation something like this: Man + tool = machine ? If the human
environment has been changed by the advent of technology to the point
where unless a man learns to use this hammer he will no longer be able
to function and prosper in this environment, can we not then say that
there has been a shift, and that rather than humans using the tools they
are, in a sense, beginning to use us.

> Often said to be a Luddite essay, concerned with the borg,
> but read it and you decide. What does Pynchon say about man
> and machine? 

It is important not to overlook the fact that the smashing of the looms
was not a gesture directed at the technology per se, but at the
oppressive labour relations with which it came hand in hand, and which
it could thus conveniently symbolise. I think Pynchon makes this quite
clear in the essay.

Good stuff on "enfetishment" in V. Thanks.