The Quest and the Grail (or Logocentrism)

[Terrance]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 18 Jun 2000, Otto Sell wrote:
> 
> > To be correct: Cromwell "managed" the Irish question in 1649, the monarchy
> > was unable to deal with the colonized Ireland efficiently. It maybe not
> > Puritanism but Protestantism, and P1 is just a sect of P2.
> > Otto
> >
> Earlier there was Henry II in 1171 and John in 1210. Sometimes these guys
> were "invited" by local competitors for power, much like the Americans in
> Vietnam. Race and the Reformation in European exploitation of "nature" are
> afterthoughts, though important afterthoughts, was my only point. The
> impetus was already there. Have to look deeper than Christianity for the
> source of evil in the world. But we all know this.
> 
>                         P.

Yes, you have to look deeper. There is an expression, "Still
waters run deep," but it doesn't apply to Pynchon. With
Pynchon, the waters are deep, but they move at the speed of
light.


M&D comes to mind-- Chapter 28 of M&D. It opens with a
passage from Wicks Cherrycoke's
Spiritual Day-Book. Wick's asks, "what, in our corrupted
Days, has become of Knights and Castles, when neither is any
longer reasonable, or possible. No good can come of such
dangerous Boobyism." 

 So here is the proof (Ha! Ha!) that Pynchon wrote M&D
before
GR. What has become of Knights in GR? The Castles? The quest
for the Grail? 
Religious quests in GR are perversions of the historical
quests. In one story in GR, 
the Sangraal, the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend is
now but a replica, methyl metchacrylate, the blood of
Christ, Pointsman is member of the round (oil&plastics)
table and the Castle is 
a complex physical/imaginative structure--religious(tarot
etc.) in the realm of Blicero. 


If Pynchon's attack is directed at Calvinistic Determinism,
if
in his fiction all  the manifesting of destiny and killing
and repression can be laid at the feet of European
Christians and those that despise the earth and people of
color in HIS name, what has Pynchon to say that makes his
novels any more worthy of study than a thousand commonwealth
or post colonial writers that make such claims? Is it true
what some say of
Pynchon? What he has to say is less important than how? Or
as James Wood has claimed, Pynchon's fiction calls attention
ONLY to itself? 

BTW, Derrida is not in the book, but that Plato, oh that guy
is important
here, he's in Pynchon's Books in a big fat way. 

I'll respond to your post soon Thomas, I hope to catch a few
matches too. I'm watching Spain now, please don't give any
scores, we get the games delayed here, so we will watch
Germany and Britain tonight at 11pm EST. 

"The Ulster Scots were dispossess'd
once,---shamefully,---herded, transported,--- Hostages to
the demands of Religious Geography. Then, a second time,
were they forced to flee the rack-rents of Ulster, for this
American unknown. Think ye, there will be any third
Coercion? At what cost, pray? Americans will fight Indians
whenever they please, which is whenever they can, ---and
Brits wherever they must, for we will be no more contain'd,
than tax'd. The Grenville Ministry ignore these Data, at
their Peril." [M&D.277]