The Quest and the Grail

[Terrance]

Thomas Eckhardt wrote:

Hello Thomas, I was hoping you might join in on this thread. 
> >
> 
> I've been told that Pynchon's treatment of Puritanism is heavily influenced
> by Max Weber's "Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism" (my
> translation) in which Weber argues that Protestant or Calvinist ethics are
> the root of capitalism. In any case, in the US Puritanism smoothly
> translated into the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Both concepts were as
> teleological and manichaeic (or based on binary oppositions, if you like) as
> they get: The idea of conquering the continent in order to erect a "Citty
> upon a Hill", as John Winthrop famously put it, is not very different from
> the notion that "Progress is God." (William Gilpin). Both were based on the
> belief that the dark, Biblical wilderness and its red devils had to make way
> for the white steeple, the Divine Light and the Word. What remained after
> Winthrop's city had been built and the ordained Destiny of the white man in
> North America had been reached were "Shit, Money, and the Word", and the few
> ignoble savages who had not died from hunger, cold or the shells of the
> Howitzer guns of the US-cavalry.


If we can not bunch up the "christians" and "puritans" we
will have a better chance of settling this disagreement.
It's tough because of the way P mixes religions and uses
terms.  I said, Pynchon is sympathetic towards the puritans.
Now that doesn't sound right, does it? It's sounds as wrong
to you as your statement that, 

 P's use of color imagery in GR seems to point to a
wholesale rejection of Christian thought, insofar as it
despises nature and people with different color of skin,

sounds wrong to me. 


Both statements are too Black and White I think, although I
agree that those that despise the earth and people of
different color (some are puritans) are denounced in GR. 
Pynchon's use of the term Puritan is typical of his use of
other important terms, like christian and paranoia,  in that
he we need to figure out what he means by puritans by the
context. It's confusing because he often uses the term
comprehensively, for example,  "it's a Puritan reflex of
seeking other orders behind the visible, also known as
paranoia, filtering in." [GR.188] I will argue that Pynchon
is sympathetic to all "primitive" communities,  including,
for example, the Ovatjimba, the aardvark people, the Herero
prior to the christian sickness, and the early Puritans. 


> I believe that the relation between Puritanism and Capitalism constitutes a
> major theme in Pynchon's fiction. And I think that his fiction displays an
> acute awareness of the historical pattern outlined above. His use of colour
> imagery in GR seems to me even to point to a wholesale rejection of
> Christian thought, insofar as it despises nature and people with different
> colour of skin - 

Weber and the chapters I suggested from Graves and Adams
support your claim that P's fiction displays an acute
awareness of the historical pattern, but what is that
pattern and what use does P make of it?  Is it a blanket
condemnation of christian thought? I don't think that's the
case.  GR is not an anti-christian novel. P's imaginative
pattern is only partly an historical pattern. History may be
consistent with it or not. In the example you note the
patterns coincide, P degenerates the Calvanist's elitist
doctrine of providence to the three american truths, "Shit,
money and the Word," and this is an historical pattern, a
pattern we can trace to his sources, but we cannot apply
this pattern to history or to christian thought wholesale. 


his treatment of mysticism is somewhat different. To cut
> this short: Yes, I believe that GR is anti-Puritan, and I would be
> interested in your arguments to the contrary, namely that "GR is quite
> sympathetic to the Puritans." That's news to me. Could you give some
> examples? 

I can and will, but first I will need to put some pages
numbers together. 



And where in GR is Jewish mysticism "associated with evil"?

This is another topic, but I will be glad to take it up
after we are finished with these larger issues. P's source
is Gershom Scholom and Jewish Mysticism is, as I have
posted, mixed with other religions, in Pudding and  Katje's
affair, Greta, and Gottfried.