Theatre/theater?

[Lycidas at worldnet.att.net]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> Lycidas at worldnet.att.net wrote:
> >
> > Thomas Colin wrote:
> > >
> > > On the 7 theatres:
> > > No, I'm not sure these are the only 7 occurrences. I could have missed a
> > > few. So, Let's all hunt down them damn theeeaders, boy!
> >
> > I'm really interested in GR.326. "Perhaps it's all
> > theater..."
> >
> > If this is the only time in GR where Pynchon uses "theater"
> > I think you are correct, it's significant. Given all the
> > examples you give below--all use the word "theatre"--it
> > makes sense to try to figure out why.
> >
> > You also noted that Enzian says, "Perhaps it's all
> > theater..."
> >
> > This is seems very significant too. As I mentioned, the
> > reliability of narrative is confirmed here, first because it
> > is Enzian and second because he is making a significant
> > discover at this moment, personal, historical,
> > psychological, theological, philosophical. When certain
> > characters make discoveries, particularly about Them, the
> > System, the Firm, etc.,  Their Theatre, or what is real and
> > not reel or fake, and when characters have visions
> > (hallucinatory revelations), what they say or think, their
> > narrative is reliable.
> >
> >
> >
> There may be a small reliablity of narrator problem however. Because
> doesn't Enzian seem a tiny bit hesitant about holding together and
> reconciling the fact that the Western and Soviet Allies can be
> quarreling amongst themselves over the division of the spoils while at
> the same time there are the equally unmistakeable signs that there will
> continue to be collusion in the West to keep control firmly in the
> West--the West, that is, as far as nonEuropeans like himself are
> concerned, and that most important of all the coming cold war
> (if it were possible to look into the future) may turn out to be a
> semi-cozy agreement to continue the  "alliance" by other means.

The narrative is very difficult, however, it is reliable for
the reasons I have noted. However, since the narrative is
"shared" (I will provide a more lit.crit explanation if you
like, although I doubt we need to discuss "reliable
narrative" and the various narrators of GR) with Enzian, we
are presented with a character trying to figure things out:
"Enzian would like to be more out of the process than he
is..their time, their space...But it is their time, their
space...naively, outcomes the white continuum grew past
hoping for centuries ago...he can't handle all of them at
the same time...moments of reverie of honest despair, that
he is speaking lines prepared somewhere far away (not far
away in any space, but in levels of power) and that his
decisions are not his own at all...." 326-329 too long to
quote

Enzian is still in the process, BUT he is aware of this and
he would like to be out of it. Remember when Katje attempts
to warn Slothrop that his volition, his penis, is not his
own? Slothrop wants to hold onto something of Katje that is
directed by Them. Enzian (unlike Slothrop, who is now moving
from "paranoia" by one "heresy" to "anti-paranoia" where
nothing is connected), is here rejecting the hero role
(Slothrop's mock hero role in contrast or the christ
allegory) and wants to stay close to the "zero" or in a
consciousness between "paranoia and "anti-paranoia."
Remember that Slothrop has no idea of time and space. Enzian
understands that in the zone their is no time and space,
only Their time and Their space, a time and space that They
project onto the four (I will explain these if you like)
realms of the zone. However, Enzian is naive in that he
expects the white continuum, and he is still overwhelmed by
the details, the diversity, and the dreams of the white
North. This diversity is what drives characters to impose
some order--often religious, metaphysical, scientific-- onto
experience, but the order they impose, leads to
anihilation--either total control or total synthesis, but in
any event loss of self or identity.

  


> 
> Why the clause "perhaps it's theater, though they SEEM no longer to be
> Allies" chooses to use the "er" spelling is anybody's guess. The meaning
> of the word here is "illusion." This isn't a very usual figurative use
> of the word I wouldn't think. Spectacle or sphere of action are more
> usual. Still nothing quite seems to justify a change of spelling.
> Just thinking out loud.
>                                 P.


Me too, just thinking out loud.