pynchon-l-digest V2 #1593

[jporter]

> From: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com> Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001
> 08:44:10 -0700
> 
> 
> Can't deny there's a relative lack of information about Pynchon compared to
> some other authors, or that Pynchon has taken steps to keep personal
> information out of the public conversation.  And given the unconscious content
> of authorial intentions, yes, the process of arriving at any understand of
> them will to a certain degree be based on textual interpretation or
> speculation.  Of course textual interpretation, even when it focuses only on a
> text and ignores the author, is hardly an objective or exact science.
> 
I think Dave Monroe's comments posted today discussing Pynchon's letter to
Hirsch and appended to Seed's _Fictional Labyrinth..._  could be one reason,
although I'm "playing cross harp" here, because my view and the view of
Monroe don't exactly coincide. I.e., There is a big difference, as you
yourself have argued between a final artistic production- given all the
re's: visioning, writing, fining, etc., and less formal expressions,  e.g.,
a letter to a specific individual. Drawing conclusions about the "meaning"
of the art based on "the person" manifested in the scraps available (for
Pynchon not in general) is tantamount to filing your nails on my blackboard.

You may call me a purist, or worse, but I suppose it has to do with
something as personal as "sensibilities" yet as potentially transcendent as
a finished artistic creation. I think Pynchon has expressed in words and in
actions a deep respect for "society" and the work each does to get by and
how each contributes to the world, besides shitting. I think he takes
work, including his own, seriously. Work, like "matey-ness" is another one
of those Universal Binding Ingredients [not to mention being the triple
integral of acceleration, SSS...]

"Like earn what you eat, secure what you shit, been doin' it for years,"
Prarie said, "what else?"

There is, for example, that detente between Mason and Dixon, mates to the
grave, based on doing their work.

So what social worth does art, let alone writing novels, have? What does
"the man" think? Not sure, but the opening of "Nearer, My Couch, To Thee,"
offers some insight:

"'But come on, isn't that kind of extreme, death for something as
lightweight as Sloth? Sitting there on some medieval death row, going, "So,
look, no offense, but what'd they pop you for anyway?"

"Ah, usual story, they came around at the wrong time of day, I end up taking
out half of some sheriff's unit with my two-cubit crossbow, firing
three-quarter-inch bolts on auto feed.

³Anger, I guess.... How about you?"

"Um, well ... it wasn't anger...."

"Ha! Another one of these Sloth cases, right?"

". . fact, it wasn't even me."

"Never is, slugger -- say, look, it's almost time for lunch. You wouldn't
happen to be a writer, by any chance?'"

He goes on to provide insight into the creative process, within the context
of Sloth:

"It is of course precisely in such episodes of mental traveling that writers
are known to do good work, sometimes even their best, solving formal
problems, getting advice from Beyond, having hypnagogic adventures that with
luck can be recovered later on. Idle dreaming is often of the essence of
what we do."

Many good things in that essay. Given my own current examination of Ben
Franklin, it seems even more interesting than the luddite piece. Point
being, that art creation, which I'll venture used to require transcendence,
even the invocation of powers from beyond, e.g., a muse, in order to provide
a transcendent experience, a "work" with Aura that looks back at you, that
allows you to look through it to the other side, has been converted into
just another commodity: "We sell our Dreams." Ironically, the conversion has
been performed by that same "orthogonal machine" which has also reduced
Acedia from a Deadly Sin to another marketing opportunity.

I hear in The Sloth piece a confession of sorts. From its opening, the
author is admitting being just another prisoner- even a broker- in the
system of commodified transcendence, that "technology" is offering to
become, as the new Arbiter of Sin (and transcendence).

Turning against the "idle and disposable fantasies" offered by virtual
reality will be the glum luddite, apparently, practicing the new acedia. But
as Faith declines so, paradoxically, will the importance of Sloth. Unstated
but just as valid possibly is the reversal of that equation.

Yea,  and if "Idle Fantasies" are replaced by the "idle and disposable
fantasies" offered by technology, what does that spell for Artistic
Transcendence?

You asked: "...why would you ---- want to exclude speculation about
authorial intentions from consideration of a novel or other work of art? Why
not permit that along with  the other approaches that would consider only
the text, or the other possible approaches I mentioned? What's gained by
leaving the author out of the discussion about his books?"

Why would I want to reconstruct Pynchon from the scraps of his filtered
trash rather than enjoy the transcendence of his art? Don't you think my
posts over the years have been a celebration of Pynchon's art? Have I not
encouraged by my actions freedom of interpretation?  For me, however, the
work is enough. I don't need to know about HIS analogues of Monica Lewinski.
Oh, I might enjoy hearing about them, but his work stands on its own.

Rather you might ask: What does THIS author gain by leaving himself out of
the book tours, the radio talk shows, the limelite, the symposia, the
academy, and by turning away from virtual transcendence, by committing
Acedia?

It seems to me he might be increasing the transcendent value of his work for
people like me. Why would I want to turn his art into a commodity, even if,
at times, he does? Simply, but not smugly I hope-

I would prefer not to.

jody