gnostic and Gnostic

[Dave Monroe]

"Derrida, Lyotard and Pynchon."  Oh, my.   Already quite the leap to
name Lyotard a "deconstructionist" there (try Lacoue-Labarthe, Nancy,
Bennington, Critchley, perhaps even Irigaray?) --or Derrida necessarily
a "postmodernist," for that matter--but Pynchon ... but Pynchon, as I've
noted, as I've followed, say, McHoul/Wills and Berube on this, does
share some family traits with Derrida, in particular that attention to
the problematics and even politics of various oppositions and
exclusions, various "just" (not to mention unjust) "plain" (not to
mention fancy) differences, despite those differences being elided here
...

But if you've a problem granting Pynchon a working knowledge of, say,
gnosticism, Baudelaire, whatever, ca. V., let it first be noted that he
would have been even less likely to have been under the direct influence
of Derrida ca. Gravity's Rainbow, D&d only really much arriving on US
shores ca. the publication of GR.  But, of coure, direct influence isn't
necessarily, er, necessary, much of the deconstructive indeed in the air
at the time, and TRP's attention to those binaries might well have,
seems to have, led him to something quite similar to JD's little project
...

"There is" indeed "more to" deconstruction "than simply" (though I'd
note that this sin't necessarily all that simple, as I've apparently
been demonstrating myself here ...) "the demonstration of
intertextuality."  "It" indeed "isn't *just* a 'game.'"  But, "surely,"
I never wrote that "it" was, nor did I write that "deconstructive
analyses" are "simply the demonstration of intertextuality."  Not even
sure what sort of straw man you're setting up there, but this is
precisely why I asked, and ask again, just what are the stakes here,
what are the possible consequences?  So ...

And, again, granting anything its "very nature" is, indeed, an
essentializing move, a repetition of an essentializing move, at any
rate, that "very" essentializing move that, say, the religious makes in
essentializing, naturalizing, itself, as having an essence, a nature, as
essential, natural.  Which is the "very" move that the deconstructive
contests.  And are all "religions" necessarily "logocentric and
exclusivist"?  Are all religions necessarily even "religious," for that
matter, but ...

But someone once asked me something to the effect of, is deconstruction
something that is done to texts, or is deconstruction something that
texts do to themselves?  Good question ...

And recall Lyotard claiming St. Augustine, by the way, as "postmodern"
in  his peculiar sense ...

But, again, while I've no particular qualms about kicking around the
terms "postmodern," "postmodernist," "postmodernism" myself, there is
that hazard--and one "we've" fallen into here, again--of, say, A is
postmodern, B is postmodern, therefore A is similar to B; or C is a sign
of the postmodern, D displays said sign, therefore D is necessarily
postmodern; or, E is postmodern, F is a characteristic of E, therefore F
is characteristically postmodern.  And so forth, never really quite
holding up to scrutiny ...

But that "point," those "point(s)" of Pynchon's fiction (or his
non-fiction, for that matter, though I would note that an awful lot of
fact pervades those fictions, and perhaps even vice versa), well, that's
what we've all been waiting for, no?   Point us to 'em there, cap'n  ...