vv (7): archetypal alligators

[Otto Sell]

kfl wrote yesterday:
"perhaps this example of 'below the street=subconsciousness' could work as a
 starting point for a new round of the now & then emerging pomo debate, but
this time - he he - in consideration of the actual pynchon text."

Yes, but in consideration of Kai's texts too:

around December 21 he wrote:
"has pynchon ever called himself or his work "postmodern"? does it really
make sense to name vineland "postmodern" but finnegans wake "modern"? do you
think  that fiedler or brinkmann, if still alive, would go for the phrase
"pomo rules ok"? and do we need the label "pomo" to devote ourselves to the
beauty of pynchon's prose?"

No, but has he ever said anything concerning his novels?
The "official" postmodern opinion tends to see the "Ulysses" as modern and
"Finnegan's Wake" as a work of a step beyond that, preparing postmodernism.
Both Pirate Prentice and Zoyd Wheeler are awaking from a dream at the
beginnings of the novels, how do we know if they don't just have fallen
asleep and are now dreaming. Not a dream within a dream but the postmodern
indeterminacy of deciding what is real and what is not:

I too think that Tanner's interpretation is very plausible and does not at
all speak against the postmodern approach of looking for binary oppositions:
sewer-system versus street level,
"as if every level of consciousness would be just another form of dreaming."

Kai, you once asked about Pelevin - this last Tanner-sentence is precisely
the thing Pelevin is playing with in his "Buddha's Little Finger," and you
can bet that he is a Pynchon-fan, and vice versa - he he.

Of course we don't need any labels to, as you like to put it, "to devote
ourselves to the beauty of pynchon's prose" - but this is exactly what I am
not - a simple devotee of an invisible author somewhere up on a throne high
in the literary skies. That's not what I'm after, but I let another guy
(John Dewey) do the work:

"It is quite possible to enjoy flowers in their colored form and delicate
fragrance without knowing anything about plants theoretically. But if one
sets out to *understand* (D's emphasis) the flowering of plants, he is
committed to finding out something about the interactions of soil, air,
water
and sunlight that condition the growth of plants. ("Art as Experience, 1934,
Perigee 1980, p. 4)
(and he repeats it a few pages later):

"Flowers can be enjoyed without knowing about the interactions of soil, air,
moisture, and seeds of which they are the result. But they cannot be
*understood* (D's emphasis) without taking just these interactions into
account--and theory is a matter of understanding. Theory is concerned with
discovering the nature of the production of works of art and of their
enjoyment in perception."
(ibid, p. 12)

Means to me that my reading fun comes not only from reading what he has
written but from trying to understand *how* he has done it. And in this I
truly consider postmodernism as inevitable.

On December 22 Kai wrote:
"if acceptance of poly-contexturality is "pomo", then i'm pomo"- and I say:
yes, and soil, seeds, air, water and sunlight are these various contexts (in
fact it's an unlimited number) I claim for understanding Pynchon's high
prose.
I once called you postmodern and I repeat it and I'm sure that if you'd take
a deeper look you'd like those theoretical books like you've loved the
philosophers, sociologists, modern and other postmodern novelists you've
read.

--------------------------------------
Terrance has sent this url:
>
>
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/97/nyunderground/docs/nymain.html
>

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/features/97/nyunderground/docs/myth000.htm
l

"Looking for albino alligators? Test your skills about what you think you
know and learn the startling truth of what lies beneath the streets and
buildings of New York."

Benny's gator is a pinto:
"pale white, seaweed black."
(V. 111)

There is only one confirmed case of an alligator in the NYC-sewers from
1935. But those "modern myths" are hard to fight, because they are appealing
to something in our subconscious.
So seeing the reptiles as an representation of an earlier level of evolution
is very good; we still got the brain part they were limited too, it still
fulfills the similar functions as with our very early ancestors. Paul Mackin
had called it "primal instinctual reptile brains" on December 21.

This comparison of the society to the will and the repressed to the
subconscious as binaries fits to the volunteers too, mostly bums or other
kind of "displaced persons" who can be psychologically seen as "das
Verdrängte," the repressed of society. My old dictionary gives me both
"repress" and "displace" when I look up the German verb "verdrängen."

There's no free will in this brain part, these functions are involuntarily
and uncontrollable. Most of those guys would be able to get any better job,
so that they are called volunteers is pure irony.

In this context of really primary biological functions the smell is very
important 'cause smelling the other sex over long distances was the
number-one priority to secure the survival of the dinosaur-races, more
important as for smelling food.
And what do we say in German if we don't like somebody, but cannot give a
logical reason:
Wir können ihn nicht riechen. We are unable to smell him - he's not of our
kind.

Another reversed binary:
"If he fired anywhere in this stretch of short, crazy angles there'd be
danger from ricochets."
(112)

A ricochet is an effect that turns the poles of cause and effect upside
down, if you play tennis or if you shoot. What was intended to be a danger
for the other returns to sender...

Contrary to the alligators which do not tend to live in the sewers by their
own free will unless they are put there by humans, rats have discovered the
sewers as part of their natural environment. Recently I saw a documentation
about the Hamburg sewer-system (which is quite big too) and the guys who are
controlling the pipes. As a matter of fact they are more afraid of small
animals than of the rats (which are being poisoned). But a whole wall full
of cockroaches in a narrow passway just a few centimeters from your head or
back seems to be the most unpleasant thing  they could think off, apart from
sudden rainfalls which are really dangerous or falling into the sewer
channel. Of course the job itself is very smelly too but they say you get
used to it.
And some people really seem to like being underground, like . . .

Father Fairing:

"a picture of the Parish as a little enclave of light in a howling Dark Age
of ignorance and barbarity."
(119)

We hate rats, we've always hated them. There were stealing and dirtying our
food from the days of the cave on and they've brought the pest to Europe in
the Middle Ages, they still spread diseases today. Calling a fellow human "a
rat" is a very bad accusation, at least in the German language. Trying to
convert the real rats reveals Father Fairing's belief that the metaphorical
human rats have taken over the "city" for good. In Germany they definitely
had done so since '33. The good Father calls the 30s of our century a "Dark
Age," a period of time which we call "modern" in every sense, a time when,
like in any time I can recall, highest developments in art and technique

just some thoughts

Otto

----- Original Message -----
From: Lorentzen / Nicklaus <lorentzen-nicklaus at t-online.de>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 5:06 PM
Subject: vv (7): archetypal alligators