The Gnostic Pynchon

[Terrance]

Dave Monroe (another DM) wrote:[snip]....on the other hand
(though this point is no
> doubt related, as perhaps a schematic of the aforementioned binaries), that
> (predating Christian gnosticism, of course, but ...) gnostic Manicheism, that very
> binary mentality indeed, "good" and "evil," if not perhaps quite relative, at least
> on rather more equal ground than in Christianity, where evil is fallen from (an
> ontologically prior, superior) good.  A fair characterization?  

YES! That's a fair characterization and this is a critical
point, that's why we need to identify the various gnosticism
as I outlined, the historical development, etc. 

 ... but, while Pynchon no doubt makes use of gnosticism,
> gnosticisms--his interest in the Pentecost, the Holy Ghost, seems to me to exhibit a
> certain tendency towards gnosticism, for example--it also seems to me that, again,
> he, his texts, are largely countergnostic, precisely in their frequent, recurring
> emphases on, precisely, the worldly, the material, the vulgar, the Preterite.

Yes, I agree, Are the two pitted against each other in GR?
And if so, does this conflict render the ultimate purport of
either radically uncertain? 

> Indeed, he seems to suggest that Slothropian Preterition precisely as a sort of
> counterheresy to gnosticism.  Transcendence thereof often seems problematized,
> parodied, even, say, the Rocket, do note, for example, that that gravitic
> rainbow--"light and gravity," indeed, about as immaterial as one can get (leaving
> aside, for the moment, just what constitutes "the material" vs. "the immaterial" in
> a quantum physical world)--is, indeed, parabolic, what goes up does indeed come
> down, returns to the world, and, in the case of the Rocket, with decidedly material,
> decidedly devastating results ...

Yes, problematized, parodied, but ....? Yes, even the
Rocket, it's not Moby-Dick is it?