GRGR(11) - the Master (PPF 1&2)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

rj wrote:
> 
> RICHARD_WILSON at udlp.com:
> 
> > also, i suspect that the (im)morality of a mathematical eqation should be
> > identically zero which would make the "creatures" (of the Master Eqn)
> > arbitrarily (or 'singularly' perhaps) innocent...
> > (how innocent do you want them to be?)....
> 
> That's very interesting, and in the context of your last question I
> think that Pynchon is very eager to illustrate how far each of the
> characters is wittingly or unwittingly serving a particular "Master", as
> well as demonstrating that there can often be more than one master
> involved, or a concealed hierarchy, which changes the odds. As far as
> the Master Equation theory goes -- and it is a good one I think -- if it
> is Jamf or Pointy who have intermediated on behalf of the Master
> Equation then the ratio changes again. In fact, PfP #2 becomes a fairly
> subtle arithmetic formulation of indeterminacy in itself, does it not?
> 
> I'm also thinking in terms of Slothrop's (and Profane and Zoyd and the
> Thanatoid's) schlemielhood, in whose terms the "Master" is the
> inanimate, cultural dross, society's wastes (the teev, comix,
> Shit'n'Shinola) etc. In this context "innocence" is in fact *not* a
> condition devoutly to be wished. Slothrop is gradually tainted by his
> experiences: he becomes less "innocent", but somehow better, or more
> whole (psychically, if not physiologically), as he gains knowledge of
> himself and his history. I think Pynchon might be confronting the
> traditional binary opposition of innocence and guilt as moral
> extremities (cf. Butler's *Erewhon* perchance? Or is it
> innocence/experience: perhaps Blake is pertinent here?)


If Blake is pertinent here--"proverbs of hell"--- I think
one would need to deal with Blakes irony. While reading VL,
after Isaiah 2.4 is introduced as Prairie's boyfriend (Zoyd
is very concerned about his daughter losing her virginity to
Isaiah 2.4) I expected Ezekiel or Blake to show up in some
inverted Hell. The conversations between Hector and Zoyd
about "who'd you save" and virginity and with van meter
(zoyd's double at this point) on innocense, reminded me of
Blakes "Marriage", "Milton", and "Thel."  Speaking of the
public, Blakes public was prepared for a trip to hell,
prepared by the Menippians.  We know that Pynchon's  "Hell"
("who would have thought so many would be here?"GR.537)
refereces not only Eliot's WL--" so many/I had not thought
death had undone so many"-- and Dante's Inferno, III, 55-57
("so many that I wondered/how death could have undone so
great a number (trans. musa), but I suspect that Blake's
irony is twisted into Pynchon's Proverbs, and if this is the
case, and I think I can support this, Pynchon's Menippean
(see Hollander's "Pynchon's Inferno" 1978) needs to be
accounted for. Reading Wood's recent book convinces me that
failing to recognize the menippean in Pynchon, and american
(I think this a very important point--AMERICAN) postmodern
use of allegory, allegory  as McHale sums it up in his
"Postmodernist Fiction" leads to a reading of Pynchon as a
writer of novels that "simply call attention to
themselves."