V.V.(9) Vheissu

[jporter]

> From: "David Morris" <fqmorris at hotmail.com>
> 
> 
>> From: "jbor" The (arrogant) falsity of the binary opposition (i.e.
>> civilised v. primitive) is what is revealed in Vheissu to Pynchon's
>> narrator, Godolphin (and thus to us by Pynchon?), and this is precisely
>> what he is so distressed by. The Vheissuvians are in fact always *one step
>> ahead* of Godolphin (and "Western civilisation"), culturally,
>> intellectually, in their relationship to the environment et. al., and this
>> is what is so terrifying to old Hugh.
> 
> I don't think this equation fits the text.  What Hugh specifically notes as
> the source of his dread and horror was a lack, an absence.  The Vheissuvians
> do SEEM "ahead of us" in the classic model of Shang Gri La.  What we expect
> Hugh to discover is an unsullied purity in them to match their outward
> radiance.  He doesn't find that, nor does he find superiority.  He finds
> them as venal as anyone, and maybe even more so because of the ABSENCE he
> finds.
> 
> More later,
> David Morris

Have to agree with David on this one. Using the Anti-paranoia/free-will/no
connections "epistemology," Hugh is terrified of the absence of history-
everything in the present- constantly emerging- surface reality of
Vheissu-land. This highlights the subtext that paranoia *depends* on a
history- specifically a shared time- when seemingly unrelated events might
have been proximal enough to effect eachother. It seems that paranoia is
dependent on the fabrication of a particular history, in which the paranoid,
or his mythical "big Other," enjoyed a central position.

"Hugh" finds Vheissu particularly distressing because it represents a
retinal "blind spot" (as an origin- i.e., before boundaries between the
various "hues" became established) where the optic nerve ties together all
the retinal receptors and bundles back toward the 'ol optic lobes for
integration. The brain ignores the blind spot and "gestalts in" a best guess
estimate of what woulda, coulda, shoulda been.

ah, the roads not taken...

jody