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

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

David Morris wrote:
> 
> >From: "Terrance F. Flaherty"
> >
> [snip]
> >The boys reduce Carl to a "robot"
> >at the end of the story, to an inanimate "robot
to banish
> >from their sight." But Carl Barrington is not a robot. He is
> >not mechanical.[snip]
> >
> >In "Is It OK to be a Luddite" Pynchon says,
> >Look, for example, at Victor's account of how he assembles
> >and animates his creature. He must, of course, be a little
> >vague about the details, but we're left with a procedure
> >that seems to include surgery, electricity (though nothing
> >like Whale's galvanic extravaganzas), chemistry, even, from
> >dark hints about Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus, the still
> >recently discredited form of magic known as alchemy. What is
> >clear, though, despite the commonly depicted Bolt Through
> >the Neck, is that neither the method nor the creature that
> >results is mechanical.
> >
> >He says, "Neither the method nor the creature is
> >mechanical," so what is the method and what is the creature?
> >
> [snip,snip]
> >
> >In Walpole's novel, [snip] Alfonso, like
> >Frankenstein's creature, is assembled from pieces --
> >sable-plumed helmet, foot, leg, sword, all of them, like the
> >hand, quite oversized -- which fall from the sky or just
> >materialize here and there about the castle grounds,
> >relentless as Freud's slow return of the repressed. The
> >activating agencies, again like those in "Frankenstein," are
> >non-mechanical. The final assembly of "the form of Alfonso,
> >dilated to an immense magnitude," is achieved through supernatural
> >means: a family curse, and the intercession of Otranto's
> >patron saint.
> >
> >A family curse on the house of Pynchon (Pynchon & CO. and
> >Hawthorne's House of Pyncheon) Freud's The Return of the
> >Repressed is one of the major structural themes of GR. The
> >assembly is by means of the supernatural and is non-
> >mechanical, as in Carl Barrington, V, Slothrop and the
> >"mechanical" duck of M&D
> >
> 
> It's ALIVE, Igor! A L I V E !!!!
> Nice assembly above, too, Terrance.
> 
> I agree that this animation of an assembly is not mechanical.  Somehow, by
> magic or spirit, that breath of life is given to a pile of parts.  But this
> fact comes full circle from where this thread began:  Is my hand a tool?  Or
> is it distinct from all things made, somehow sacred, like all those sperm in
> my nut-sack.  And when I die, are my spare parts still "me" when they get
> divied-up to those who need them.
> 
> Nope.  They're just parts, well-crafted, but dead once "I've" departed, just
> as Alfonso requires the "non-mechanical" to make those pieces more than
> machine.  It's the "I" that makes the difference.
> 
> David Morris
> 
> ______________________________________________________

Right, I agree, if you cut off my legs I am still Terrance,
a little lighter and slower, but still Me. When I die, PG,
my parts will return to mother earth or the great snot green
scrotum tightening sea, that is unless some medical students
attend the hanging and cart me off to a lab, cut me up and
sell me to the highest bidder.