dissertation on you-know-who

[Lorentzen / Nicklaus]

 pete,

 the modern "colonialization of the life-world" (habermas) through science &   
 technology is surely a major theme of both, m&d and gr. why not concentrate on 
 this? your thoughts about mason repressing his feelings in the name of science 
 do sound promising. & right now i don't remember any official publication which 
 works this issue really out ... but then i'm not a literature scientist.

 keep cool but care! kai 


P.D.Thwaites schrieb:
> 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
> -- 
> ------------ 
> P.D.Thwaites         elu45b at bangor.ac.uk