Chasing ... Cutting

[Paul Mackin]

When it comes to signification the possibilites are infinite. But not
all possibilities are created equal. As in the striking of a string or
the setting of a column of air to vibrate, the fundamental of the harmonic
series is heard loudly, the second note (the fundamental an octave
higher) is more faint. All I was doing the other day was identifying
the fundamental as the ongoing war as Londoners were experiencing its
death and destruction  and the first overtone as the more
abstract (abstract in sense, heh heh) Immortality itself that all are
subject to. There needs to be this kind of clear cut distinction
between the symbol and the thing symbolized or else the writing will be a
mess. You can't have sort of alike things symbolizing each other. Not on
the first go around anyway. I believed then and still believe  that the
American destination of the final rocket and Vietnam and also the
Holocaust could only be more faintly heard overtones farther up in the
series. 

I'm being very schematic and nailing things down too tightly but what the
heck.

			P.

On Wed, 30 Aug 2000, Dave Monroe wrote:

> Again, think archaeology, layers, strata, folds.  Subtexts, contexts,
> intertexts.  Collage, montage, superpositons, palimpsests.  A filmic,
> cinematic novel, indeed.  With illustrations by Robert Rauschenberg.  One can
> have their Krisatllnacht AND their Crystal Palace, too.  Very wide bandwith
> here, but with no small amount of signal bleed from channel to channel.
> "Several levels," "words on your page only delta-t from the things they stand
> for," "secrets [...] preserve[d centripetally] against centrifugal History"
> ... kinda sorta how poetic, literary language (for starters ...) functions,
> no?  Allusively, not exclusively ...
> 
> There is much in Gravity's Rainbow that is anachronistic, if one has limits
> contexts to the presumably immediate, historical ones of the narrative at any
> given point.  And it DOES rather end during the Vietnam War, Cold War,
> Postcolonialism, Civil Rights, Gay Liberation, et al.   It certainly was
> written, published at the height of such tensions, certainly can, perhaps
> should, be positioned there ...
> 
> Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 29 Aug 2000, Yessenia Perez wrote:
> >
> > > TRP gives the history and
> > > he, significantly it is through Weissmann, links the history
> > > of the Herero genocide with the  history after the failure
> > > of the German revolution, with both world wars and the nazi
> > > holocaust. But the holocaust is not the focus of this
> > > linking. It is not the holocaust that is alluded to in the
> > > opening scene of GR. No, that would fuck up the novel,
> > > sorry. TRP situates the novel, and jbor has been right on on
> > > this, and see Charles Berger's essay "Merrill and Pynchon
> > > Our Apocalyptic Scribes", "just BEFORE the beginning of the
> > > atomic age proper." The fall of the crystal palace is not an
> > > allusion to the start of the holocaust but to the end of the
> > > second industrial revolution.
> >
> > I can see that you are taking the commonsense view that the novel
> > is situated at--and starts at--the end of WWII at the beginning of atomic
> > age--not, say, in 1938 when the Jewish persecution was getting underway,
> > and not at the height of the Vietnam War, and of course I agree. But
> > are you leading up to some additional nonliteral truth here as
> > well? Curious.
> >
> >                         P.
>