GRGR(24)Re: That Little Package

[David Morris]

>From: "Seb Thirlway" Whatever happened to all that delicious paranoia?
>>From: Terrance
> >We have cycled over from everything is connected
> >("paranoia")to nothing is connected ("anti-paranoia").
> >Remember Tantivy tries to convince Slothrop that
> >'operational paranoia' can be useful, "especially in
> >combat...you know PRETEND something like that."
>
>Yes, I'd forgotten that, but there it is, way back in a pub near
>Grosvenor Square.  In a book on the scale of GR it's difficult to
>judge what your own temporal bandwidth should be: how about a
>poll - how many readers liked GR (and especially, liked GR past
>this point, which for me has always been the point where it
>starts getting very difficult - around page 550) on first
>reading?

Count me as an "Aye!"  I've had fun every time I've jumped in.  This GR 
makes it #4 & #5 (I'm reading backwards & forwards this time at least 
twice).

>You've just pointed out a connection which is obviously
>there and meant, because now, 500-odd pages later, the question -
>how much has all that paranoia been a pretence, and possibly a
>necessary pretence on the part of the characters - starts kicking
>in in a way which is not pleasant.  But how easy is this to spot,
>without exhaustive knowledge of the book?

Terrance has been pointing to this paranoia/anti-paranoia
message for quite a while now, but not this particular text.  I think that 
_Lot 49_ and _V._ are good clues to the bigger picture which warns us that 
information is both informative AND deceptive.  Pynchon has educated us from 
the beginning about "Practical Koans" of the 
"Just-Because-You're-Paranoid..." kind.  If you don't enjoy a custard pie in 
your face, you know what the old saw sez about those who can't take a joke.

>This kind of mischief is something about GR that makes it
>irresistible - it's as if GR was written expressly so that
>argument/discussion on this list will never stop [snip]
>So here we've got Tantivy casually suggesting, just as a
>conversational gambit to help out a friend who's getting freaked
>out, that paranoia can be useful as an operational tactic - there
>follow 500 unbelievable pages (count the number of words they've
>generated on this list alone), followed by the revelation that
>those 500 pages were an illustration of that one sentence, and
>now the reader is going to get the ground cut from under h feet.

This is only true if one's feet are not nimble, and also only if one 
believes everything one reads.  Continued suspended belief and disbelief are 
strongly encouraged by the narrator from the beginning of GR.

>Is this a great novel?

Without a doubt.

>I'm not sure,

I too have had my doubt, but then I keep reading.

>
>Sorry, did I mention I'm a Pynchon fan?

No need to.

David Morris
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