TV v. God

[jbor]

on 8/4/01 7:46 AM, Thomas Eckhardt at thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de wrote:

> "(...) Fausto's kind are alone with the task of living in a universe of things
> which simply are, and cloaking that innate mindlessness with comfortable and
> pious metaphor so that the 'practical half' of humanity may continue in the
> Great Lie, confident that their machines, dwellings, streets and weather share
> the same human motives, personal traits and fits of contrariness as they.
> (...)
> It is the role of the poet, this 20th century. To lie." (V., 326)
> 
> This is a poetological statement which should have immense consequences for
> the
> way we read Pynchon, the way we try to make sense of his metaphors, analogies
> and kute korrespondences. Of course, the statement is not made by the implied
> author but comes from a character. Nevertheless: Is it possible to reconcile
> this passage with your claim that "Pynchon's universe is alive"?

This is very important I think, and resonates with that first paragraph in
_Lot 49_. There's that list of things which happened unobserved: the birds
waking, the unseen sunrise, the tune in Bartok's symphony; which Oedipa
seems to refer to as "dreams", and Pierce's "dreams" at that. Oedipa is
being drawn back to all the other-worldly things, the possibilities, which
Pierce brought to her attention, and which obviously unnerved her while they
were together. 

And then, pondering the comic-ironic possibility of Pierce's death-by-icon
she is returned to the present. Her "laugh", which, being both "out loud and
helpless" is as much a cry as a laugh, to herself, brings her to sudden,
stark self-consciousness. The paragraph closes with "the room" -- it's the
"living-room", remember -- apparently granted sentience:
    
    That only made her laugh, out loud and helpless: You're so sick, Oedipa,
    she told herself, or the room, which knew.

I think that the "sick" is perhaps the same contemporary colloquial usage of
the word as in "Whole Sick Crew", or a "sick" joke. And I'm not sure that
the room "knew" because it's part of God's immanence as for the fact that it
had borne witness to Oedipa's dry humour and cynicism for a number of years.

Does the "dead eye of the TV" stare, or is that how it appears to Oedipa?

Does "the room" know or does Oedipa imagine -- perhaps ironically and
self-consciously -- that the room would or should know?

Does the tree speak to Slothrop or does Slothrop only perceive that the tree
is speaking to him?

I think that these are the questions which are being raised, but I'm not
sure that they are answerable in any conclusive way or even if there's a
consistent attitude towards them, or even towards the possibility that such
questions can be answered, through P's texts. And I agree with Thomas that
Fausto's presentiments about the role of the poet and the function of
metaphor should not be dismissed lightly.

best