gnostic and Gnostic

[Terrance]

Dave Monroe wrote:
> 
> "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  ...


Forget it. You are not holding your breath are you? Forget
it. Not gunna happen, not never. It's a game. You can play
or not. Don't expect anything more. 
The text is whatever. Come on Dave, it's not Gnostic or
gnostic or some "Gnostic" religion in India or Iran or on
Tralfamadore, it's a game. Come on, it's nothing to do with
TRP or V. or any text he's written, hell, he's never read
JD.