V.V. 3--McClintic Sphere and Inanimateness

[jbor]

But, and as you seemed to be pointing to as well in your consideration of
Ahab and Queequeg, the wind, mirror-time et. al., the animate/inanimate
nexus in *V.* isn't just a simple binary opposition with the one privileged
over the other at all times. I have no doubt that Pynchon, in a typically
dialectical or perspectival way, problematises interpretation so's that it
just ain't that easy to say: animate = "always good" and inanimate = "always
bad". If the wind outside the V-Note and the breath with which McLintic is
able to create the "music of the spheres" are being equated, which is very
feasible to me and an excellent observation, then I'd say that the
animate/inanimate opposition which we have perhaps taken for granted is
suddenly being reversed, or subverted. The scene affords a new perspective
on the debate which began the chapter -- it is an argument shown rather than
told -- and this I think is indicative of the relativism inscribed in
Pynchon's fictional mode. I'd be extremely wary of reductionist approaches
which try to latch onto convenient examples of "positive" and "negative"
symbolism simply in order to prove or justify a prior attitude or ideology
which has been brought into the text.

best

----------
>From: Thomas Eckhardt <uzs7lz at uni-bonn.de>
>To: jbor <jbor at bigpond.com>
>Subject: Re: V.V. 3--McClintic Sphere and Inanimateness
>Date: Sat, Nov 4, 2000, 10:14 PM
>

snip
> Sphere's
> music seems indeed related to the relentless blowing of the inanimate wind,
and
> the whiteness of the ivory appears to be the emblematic colour of
inanimateness
> in this novel.

> the possible correspondences between the horn and Eigenvalue's and
Schoenmaker's
> respective professions, the ivory sax seems to be related to the imagery of
> inanimateness.

> there is the need to
> reconcile this - perhaps - negative symbolic aspect of the narrator's
> description of Sphere with the positive opinion most of us have about this
> character.