No subject

[P.D.Thwaites]

Hello, 
I am Pete, and I have just signed up to your list of all things Pynchon
this very night. Firstly, let me say how amazed and impressed I am that so
many people connect with Mr. Pynchons novels in the same way that I have
done.
	Now, to my point. I am an undergraduate student about to begin a
dissertation on you-know-who. The specific subject I want to tackle is one
dealt with primarily by Gravity's Rainbow and Mason and Dixon. It is that
of the development of what I call "social conditioning", a phrase borrowed
from a recent Channel 4 documentary entitled "The Anatomy of Disgust".
	This is the process of a persons gradual detachment from his animalistic
nature into a paranoid, lost, confused, and wholly complete person who
might inhabit a Pynchon novel. Tyrone Slothrop is perhaps the best example
of this. He disappears from Gravity's Rainbow, (after being stretched from
pillar to post by his exposure to a gradual distrust of pretty much
everything), "just feeling natural"; my last memory of him was of a naked
man frollicking with Lemmings and Rabbits, well away from worlds which look
like "a printed circuit".
	The process of "social conditioning" reaches a logical conclusion in
Gravity's Rainbow. But to my mind, Mason and Dixon is a book about where
this process all began. It began (Frued would be proud) when humans began
to repress their feelings. Feelings like Mason's natural feeling of loss at
the death of his wife. Science teaches him that he is not allowed to rest
easy in the knowledge that she is with God now. There is no God. Nor are
there Ghosts, Werewolves, Gollems or talking dogs/clocks/inanimate objects
of various shoe sizes. Science said so.
	And this, very briefly, is my argument. What I would hugely appreciate
from all of you is any kind of feedback whatsoever. Qoutes, opinions,
anything. I feel that I am still lacking something to actually ARGUE. Any
suggestions over this would be massively appreciated. And of course, dont
be afraid to thoroughly ridicule me if my naivety has led me down an
utterly deluded and/or overgrown garden path. 
	I really do feel quite lost with such a massive body of work to deal with.
Before discovering this list, I was unsure as to whether I could deal with
the Pynchon canon at all, but the list has at least shown that there are
people who, like me, are crazy enough to try. I would be enormously
grateful if you could help me find my way.
	Thanks, 
	Pete Thwaites
Elu45b at bangor.ac.uk
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P.D.Thwaites         elu45b at bangor.ac.uk