GRGR Finale: Death and the City

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 24 Sep 2000, jbor wrote:



> 
> I don't think Pynchon ... at least, *I* don't come away from the novel
> thinking that Blicero's futile grasp at transcendence (through Love, Faith,
> Sacrifice) is any more hare-brained than that of "the Christian God", on
> which it is modelled, or Enzian's, or Slothrop's creative paranoia, or those
> secular moviegoing Americans/Westerners -- i.e. the "old fans", us, the
> reader, and Pynchon too: "(haven't *we*?)" my emph. -- sitting complacently
> in that Orpheus Theatre at novel's end totally oblivious to Its imminent and
> inevitable approach by virtue of our daily immersions in the "mindless
> pleasures" of living such as masturbation, inter-personal contact,
> hymn-singing, or any other of the human scrabblings (and scribblings) after
> some panacea or avoidance which are depicted (and which the text itself also
> embodies).

Fer heavenssake, "hairbrained" in NOT an insult. In Pynchon everything is
hairbrained. The more hairbrained the better . . .

B scores higher than average . . .

			P.