pynchon-l-digest V2 #1610

[jporter]

> From: Dave Monroe <monroe at mpm.edu>

> 
> I think one bit of Pynchon-list myth/misinformation that seems to keep
> getting reproduced here is that I've somehow claimed that any of the
> very specifically localized readings I've offered are intended or
> otherwise implied to be generalizeable to whatever text is at hand, and
> then some.  And Doug and Charles Hollander are again here dragged in on
> similar, similarly unfounded "charges."  What we do share, in our own
> various ways, and with others "here" and many elsewhere, is an interest
> in the historical, political contexts of these texts ...

Inspite of the latent thrill I feel beginning to coil within at the thought
of this frolic being so serious as to be brought up on "charges" for
something I might post here, I have to agree with you : ), with one slight
addition. That "context" should include the economic risk undertaken by the
author, potential gain as much as potential time wasted (B. Franklin does
cast a broad shadow). That slant might also be applied to any in the pynchon
industry. Note: There's nothing wrong with making a living, nor, for that
matter, asking questions about the effects (or lack thereof) of one's work
on the social fabric- intentionally or no.

> 
> Hollander, for example, certainly doesn't make the Kennedy assassination
> the be all and end all of The Crying of Lot 49, although he certainly is
> right to insist that those black-bodysuited assassins in The Courier's
> Tragedy cannot help but be read in relation to the Kennedy assasination,
> given both the setting, the atmosphere of the text and of the contexts
> of its writing and publication, and that this should well have been
> obvious to Pynchon to the point that one might nigh unto collapse
> reception and intention here.

Reveal, suggest, point out, develop, recognize, examine for the consequences
of- yes. "Insist?" Well, "he" certainly has that right, but that, especially
given pynchon- and even the little I know about information theory- would be
off-putting, at least to me. But I don't think he "insists" in that way. I
think he enriches. Don't you?

> 
> Hollander might be unique in pointing that out in the critical
> literature, but that possibility had come up virtually any time I'd
> discussed the book with anybody in person (though I do seem to hang with
> a circle of conspiracy aficianados, though I'm not much of one myself).

You are begging a large question here, but I'll let it slide, except to
inquire: What is the overall consequence of uniquely pointing something out
in the critical literature upon, say, the rest of us? Especially given,
according to your shared conversations with your colleagues, that it was a
common insight?  

> But my interest, and here's where Hollander's work is valuable as well,
> is more generally in the entire culture of paranoia  enegndered in
> particular during the Cold War.  Again, my inclination is to read as if
> EVERYTHING is going on at once, "coherence," "intention," "vision," be
> damned.  In fact, the more self-deconstructive, the better ...
>

Not sure I follow the "EVERYTHING is going on at once," but would be
interested to hear more.
 
> And here's where I wish I would have had your post to respond to
> yesterday, Jody (I just get the plain ol' digest these days).  I've long
> read TCOL49, those Pynchonian texts in general, as posting certain
> caveats about interpretation in general, conspiracy theories in
> particular, with an eye (albeit not necessarily Hollander's "magic" one)
> towards those "excluded middles."   With an eye toward, precisely, that
> "need to find a conspiracy" (religions, of course, being the grandest of
> such theories).  Either the Tristero or the earth below?  Maybe not
> quite so binary ...

Yes. I agree.

> 
> Pynchon seems to weave and unweave narratives, interpretations,
> conspiracies, conspiracy theories, with nigh unto Penelopean vigor, no?
> But my question is, what might be the implications of that in precisely
> that increasingly cryptically, cryptographically, conspiratorially-not
> to mention, as you already have, semiotically and cybernetically--thick
> Cold War atmosphere?  An atmosphere in which "intelligence" means
> espionage?  Ian Fleming, John LeCarre, and countless imitators on the
> bookshelves, not to mention screens both big and small, not to mention
> what's going on in "real" life ....

Are you comparing only Pynchon to Penlope, or is there a tacit comparison of
Oedipa to Penelope (which I like)? Either way, who or what would serve as
Ulysses in this trope, some alter-Oedipa who has been away while Pene-Oedipa
fends off suitors- only to be reunited in the auction chamber? the reader?

What implications? The same, I believe, both the need for and the entrapment
by interpretation, v. the void.

> Esp. given how often Pynchon's seemingly outre elements and assertions
> turn out to have some historical basis.  Reminds me, something I saw on
> a newsstand the other day, Paranoia: The Conspiracy Reader,
> http://www.paranoiamagazine.com/.  And for a recent critical work on
> paranoia in U.S. culture and, esp., Am Lit, see ...

The historical minutiae and circumspect delivery of hugely weighty themes is
talismanic.

> 
> O'Donnell, Patrick.  Latent Destinies: Cultural Paranoia and
> Contemporary U.S. Narrative.  Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2000.
> 
> Includes discussions of TCOL49 as well as of Don DeLillo's Libra and
> Underworld, among many other works.
> 
> I'm not so confident that there IS some master theme, some Grand
> Unifying Theory, in even any given text, much less across that
> Pynchonian oeuvre, but there sure are an awful lot of transpynchonian
> elements, interests, concerns.

Oh but there is. It's called language. Although arbitrary in the choice of
symbols, the deeper grammitical aspects, whether spoken, written or signed
are genetic, and require specific developemental experiences at specific
stages. The man renting office space in, at least, your dominant
infero-frontal hemisphere is calling the shots. But who does he answer to?


>And I'm not entirely sure that "we're"
> somehow being told what we should do, no matter how cryptically, or even
> what we should have done, those texts do seem a bit circumspect in that
> regard, but paths both taken and not are certainly being noted, and I do
> think that some Comments thereupon are being made.  Oh, hell, gotta run
> (and,speak of the Devil), but ...

And I'm not entirely sure "we're" not being told what to enjoy, how to be
entertained, how to spend our hard-earned free time, what to consume, etc.

Let us hope there is a choice.

jody
> 
>