grgr: overcoming of metaphysics

[Terrance]

"French Art, if not sanguinary, is usually obscene."

Herbert Spencer--- Engineer, Philosopher, Artist
                       


Engineering and Philosophy and Art? Paul, you raise the most
interesting issues. 



Anyway, a big issue and it begins on the first page of GR,
the crystal palace, 1851, the beginning of what some have
called the golden age of engineering. Some say it ended when
the U.S. exploded the H-bomb. 

In 1950 Albert Einstein responding to Truman, wrote:

"Radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere and hence
annihilation of any life on earth has been brought within
the range of technical possibilities....In the end, there
beckons more and more clearly general annihilation." 

Anyone see the Eric Burn's documentary on NYC on PBS? 


There is a very interesting little essay on L. Frank Baum in
the June Smithsonian. 

Scholem says that mysticism does not emerge as a religious
posture when humans live in a mythical present. This is one
of the reasons why the Herero are so important to GR.

In GR, mythical or archetypal metaphors take precedence over
scientific imagery, the later being in effect profane and
Rationalized versions of the former. Pynchon applies these
(Jewish Mysticism included), idiosyncratically, ironically,
and mixes things up with his beautifully written, maniacally
imaginative prose. The Byron the Bulb episode is good
example. 


Some critics compare this last section of GR to Jazz. Maybe
Pynchon used this analogy, when he was young and prone to
BS. I do not think it is like Jazz at all. More like Eliot,
Melville, and Borges, than Parker. The loops in the Byron
episode spiral back through the text to particular episodes.
They return through the layers Pynchon has constructed, it's
no coincidence that Benny shivers or that Byron goes down
the bowl. Each religious allusion is important. There are
specific words, metaphors, language, images, puns. It's not
Jazz, it's prose fiction, wild and innovative, ingenious and
clever, but I don't think it has the same improvised quality
of Jazz, but is rather constructed to give that impression
at times, the drugs or LSD that many people have noted, the
paranoid drugged up narrators are not Pynchon blowing his
horn, they are more like Melville's Confidence Men, right?
Or am I smoking bananas again, but I think it's Pynchon's
best stuff. 

I love Weisenburger's Companion, but it only asks the the
questions and provides part of the answers: 

What is the structure? 

Stylistic features?

Focus of its parody and satire?

Sources?

Connections between science/technology
ritual/religion/occult? 

Where, when, annotation? 

After that, he suggests further study, a bibliography,
sources...