globalization & Pynchon?

[calbert at tiac.net]

Doug:

> Pynchon offers up quite a bit for consideration in M&D, published in
> '97. He seems to have kept up to date with his politics.  Prominent in
> this novel is a savage critique of the corporation in the time of its
> infancy, which of course lies at the heart of the continuing
> colonialization of the world by global capital. Intertextual
> connections with Vineland, GR, and V. would seem to make explicit the
> continuity of Pynchon's political concerns in M&D with those of the
> earlier novels.

I would suggest that P. concern with the development of 
"corporations" is on early exhibit in COL49.....It is the granting of the 
postal monopoly to Thurn und Taxis which precipitates the growth of 
that particular "corporate" identity......

But bear in mind that as a locus of power, it must co-exist with the 
heavy-weight which gave it birth, the hereditary aristocracy.....and, 
of course, the religio/political powers of the time.....and I suspect 
that this is Ps interest. 

Once again, check out Chauncey Wright:

"Of what we may call cosmical weather, in the interstellar spaces, 
little is known. Of the general cosmical effects of the opposing 
actions of heat and gravitation, the great dispersive and 
concentrative principles of the universe, we can at present only form 
vague conjectures; but that these two principles are the agents of 
vast counter-movements in the formation and destruction of systems 
of worlds, always operative in never ending cycles and in infinite 
time, seems to us to be by far the most rational supposition which 
we can form concerning the matter."

Culled from NYRB article The Socrates of Cambridge (pgs 52-55) 
4/26/01

love,
cfa