The Gnostic Pynchon

[David Morris]

>From: Terrance <Lycidas at worldnet.att.net>
>To: Dave Monroe <monroe at mpm.edu>
>I can't really make out what's going on here, but I'll make
>a couple of comments any way.

My difficulty has something to do with the lack of paragraphs.  Run-ons are 
hard to follow...

>First, any attempt to explain
>or explicate a work of fiction, especially one like GR or
>Confidence Man, by examining the APPARENT source of the
>author is a critical fallacy. I say "apparent" because an
>examination of Pynchon's  sources, for example, Jonas,
>Scholem, Matthew, Graves, is only the begining. This work,
>hard and arduous will not tell you too much. If you want to
>take it from McHale or his sources, OK, I don't care for the
>pomo politics of (mis)readings and  of all that, although it
>is so absurd and funny sometimes, but as I've stated over
>and over, but I like to  repeat myself, Pynchon combines,
>often ironically, parodically, fantasticlly,  mixes,
>distorts, bends, changes, everything he brings to GR. So,
>the critic is screwed, when he realizes that not only is a
>study of GR that seeks to understand or explicate or even
>comment on  the text by direct referencing of sources a
>problem, fun as it may be, it is also almost useless, though
>necessary, for any "critical" commentary.  The answers and
>solutions must be discoverd by a good old fashon close
>reading of the text itself. Going from GR, to Pynchon's
>Gnostic sources, to Eddins, to Voegelin, to political
>comments on Voegelin, is cool, but it is getting away from
>the text. It's cool, I'm never interseted in limiting
>discussion in any way.  But I think it's also so cool and
>fortunate that we are going to finish a GRGR and we are in
>the middle of a grgr. Jeremey is doing it again. I think he
>should get a free kisses and hugs at the picnic. My vote is
>for some ski resort in South America, Chile? This Byron the
>Bulb chapter can be read as a short story all by itself and
>can serve as the anchor for a deep and meaningful discussion
>of Gnosticism in GR. The most valuable thing to any reader
>of GR is an understanding of  how the tri-level and inverted
>world of the zone work. This resolves most issues, even that
>nasty good vs evil one. It would help the group I think, if
>we talked about the Karmic hammer and wheel, the evil
>gnostic cosmos, Pynchon's complex layering of Religious
>allusions and most importantly, his idiosyncratic use of
>archetypal (duel doubled) i.e. circle/wheel imagery.
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