grgr: overcoming of metaphysics

[Otto Sell]

----- Original Message -----
From: David Morris <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
To: <o.sell at telda.net>; <michel.ryckx at freebel.net>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 11:16 PM
Subject: Re: grgr: overcoming of metaphysics


> I don't think I agree with your characterization "mocking them all."    If
> this were so then Michel's scenario for Pynchon's use of Heidegger would
be
> very close to yours: "Pynchon, sitting at his desk and having read (an
> article on) Heidegger, thinks: 'Let's put a bit of the man's ideas in it.
> It will confuse them further and confusion is my game.'

No, it`s precisely the other way round as in Michel scenario, which leaves
much too much place for random.
And you know: "Random (...) Another fairy-tale word." (395)

> If you go to the context of the passage you quote above, you'll find its
> Leni defending the concept of the astrology, which Pokler scoffs as not
> "cause-and-effect" oriented, and thus illogical.  If this kind of mapping
is
> also the structure of GR, it is presumptuous to assume they are all only a
> game, and that in his heart Pynchon really sides with Franz over Leni.
> Rather than mocking, I'd call his use of them an hommage.
>
Of course, because in the binary opposition of Science versus Superstition,
Science claims to be the higher, the privileged pole saying that all
astrology is hocus-pocus. We always tend to symphesize with this preterite
pole and know today (with or without having read GR), that the promise of
science and technology to make the world a better place "automatically" is
at least as much hocus-pocus as astrology (if you don`t believe in the
stars).
But I did not include that "cause and effect" because I don`t wanted to
bring in another philosopher (Nietzsche). If you read Jonathan Culler (On
Deconstruction, about Derrida) you`ll find that it was precisely this binary
opposition of "cause and effect" that was deconstructed by Nietzsche, taken
by Derrida to make his point. And I`m sure it was not that Pynchon read a
little Barthes, Todorov or Derrida and said to himself the things Michel
assumed: "Let`s put it in to confuse them."
"Cause and Effect" is the center of that what Derrida calls Logocentrism,
which I would call the metaphysics of the Western, rationalized world. GR is
an assault on this, but that doesn`t make it a religious text claiming the
truth like astrology, which, btw is, in a way, logocentric too and , given
its karmic aspects, includes even cause and effect on a higher level too. .
. .

> [big snip]
> >Are we on the list Pynchon-Kabbalists who study the novel as our Torah?<
>
> In some ways I think this is exactly how it's meant to be read.
>
Funny, that sentence/idea came at last when I wrote my post. If we should
read a fictional text as a revelation, are then all revelations to be read
as fictional texts (in TRP`s opinion)? Isn`t this exactly what PoMo says?
Now I quote you, dear Dave: "I think this is exactly how it's meant to be
read." Pynchon never was a New Age writer like R.A. Wilson (for example), he
was always postmodern and has achieved a mastership and set the standards in
the art of writing historiographic metafiction with GR, Vineland and M&D.
Bearing the perpetual turning of the opposites around the zero in mind
Pynchon isn`t so difficult as "They" (whoever they are) always want us make
to believe. I really don`t see the necessity of reading Heidegger. In this
case I`d prefer Nietzsche, but he isn`t necessary too, though helpful, to
understand Pynchon`s use of the metaphysics.

Otto
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