pynchon-l-digest V2 #1610

[Dave Monroe]

... quite a bit to respond to here, not much time to do it in, but ... Paul: 
in the grand scheme of things (if not necessarily The Grand Scheme of 
Things), it might well not be important to ferret, tease, or otherwise 
discern out possible, probable, whatever historical, political, economic and 
so forth references in those Pynchonian texts.  some here--jody, maybe? 
Maybe even me ...--might see the stakes as somewhat higher in the human 
scheme of things, but ...

But neither then is it any more important to read for any other 
sort--literary, scientific, musical, religious, technological, 
philosophical, pop cultural, mystical, whatever--of references either. How 
to adjudicate bewteen all these elements?  Some are just more inclined, 
better prepared, whatever to concentrate on one or the other (or the other 
or the other ... my inclination, preparation leans more toward the 
scientific, the technological, but ...), and no one can be expected to say 
everything that needs to be, much less can be, said ...

And that's the value of an interpretive community ((c) Stanley Fish) such as 
this list, that coming together of various interpreters of various 
inclinations, backgrounds, but ... but what I'm most interested in, and 
wherein I think the particular "genius" of those Pynchonian texts lie, are 
the articulations betwixt all the aforementioned elements.  And I think 
Terrance in particular here is hinting at some pretty interesting, perhaps 
even pretty compelling, articulations between, say, literature and 
philosophy and religion and mysticism and technology and politics, but ... 
but, well, I am nothing if not patient, so ...

So, anyway, I'm hoping to contribute to, and, if not what I'm hoping to 
receive (with, again, that Derridean caveat about the Levinasian gift, that 
a gift is something that is not exchanged, that is not to be returned, and 
that, on occasion, might be circulated instead in Bataillean potlatch of 
ruinoius giving), what I'm expecting to partake in, what perhaps one should 
expect to partake in, is such an interpretive community, an open 
interpretive economy, in which observations, interpretations, readings are 
made available for the use of whomever might have use for them, and not a 
so-called "free market"  in which "market pressures"--that so-called 
"Invisible Hand," the allegedly "free" "choices" of those participating, 
willfully or otherwise, in that market--determine what is  and isn't 
available at any given moment ...

Hm ... on that dubious rhetorical articulation betwixt market and political 
"freedoms," see

Frank, Thomas.  One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism,
     Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy.
     New York: Doubleday, 2000.

... but if politics, history aren't on your wish list, well, fine, but I try 
to remain open to the fact that one can never be sure of what one might find 
interest in, use for, need of later.  Fair enough?
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