grgr: overcoming of metaphysics

[Dave Monroe]

"Historiographic metafiction"--reading our Linda Hutcheon, are we?  Very good,
and, as I've noted in another post, I think Nietzsche might be relevant as well,
while I'm not so sure about Heidegger (though what of Wittgenstein, who Pynchon,
Gravity's Rainbow does indeed namecheck?) ...

Otto Sell wrote:

> ----- 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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