GRGR(19): Notes pp. 421-433

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Jeremy Osner wrote:
> 
> p. 424 "Pökler was almost sure once during the Winter": I can't really
> make sense of Pökler's not being sure whether it is Weissman that's
> playing with him. I get sort of mixed up between what is sado-masochism
> and what is paranoia here; I guess in the world of paranoia it makes
> total sense for Pökler not to be sure; in the world of sado-masochism I
> don't think it would make sense.

Paranoia and S&M both apply to the human condition in
general in GR.  Paranoia is simply the human compulsion to
make sense by imposing Patterns on the phenomenal experience
of the world. These patterns, no matter how elaborate or
haphazard, are how the characters make sense of their
experiences. Their is in GR a Universal Conspiracy. That
Conspiracy involves everything and everyone everywhere.  And
the patterns or the making sense, the connections, are
matters of faith. And this faith culminates in the
characters, longing,  "hoping to zero in on the tremendous
and secret Function whose name, like the permuted names of
God, cannot be spoken..." This is what motivates
quests--sacred and profane in the book. These quests are
often mythical, but also psychological, artistic, and
scientific. So for example, we have the grail, tannhauser,
Cabbala, gnosticism, messainism, mysticism, and most
importantly, the Puritan vision of nature is a holy book
concealing the ultimate truth. Of course these are all
satirized by the questers of the novel, who involuntarily
and in counter distinction to the historical questers, are
on the wrong track and progressively knotting into what
cannot be a disentanglement from but an S&M voyage towards
annihilation. And YOU are on the bus (the System) to, driven
by a mad man on a suicide mission.