"underlying causative process"

[Eric Rosenbloom]

jporter wrote:
> For example, granting Mr. Hollander's version of LOT49 as *the* definitive
> reading for a moment, what is it then that's up to me? Is it to write
> letters to the editor? or to go out and protest? or to join the underground?
> or maybe even the Tristero, if that's my preference? Such would be questions
> dealing with efficacy of various actions in a world where action might make
> a difference, on the scale of Mr. Hollander's interpretation.
> 
> Without the benefit of having my magic eye opened and the whole secret
> message of LOT49 revealed to me, however, and setting aside the question of
> efficacy for a moment, all the books seem to suggest the futility of
> attempting to shape the course of large scale events because of
> predestination, or, equally futile, the total inability to predict the
> effects of any actions one might engage in order to effect large scale
> events, even given the ability to discern the *right* message. Assassination
> seems to appeal to a particular breed of paranoid, but leads to highly
> unpredictable results, often diametrically opposed to the paranoid's
> intentions.
> 
> As each novel is tempting a protagonist to take the plunge into
> paranoia-space, by *suggesting* specific links between actions on the
> individual scale with specific effects on the universal scale (of the
> novel), the reader is offered parables- small acts of decency or kindness or
> bravery- as alternatives to such futile and maybe dangerous grandiosity.
> 
> But isn't keeping cool and caring, in effect, to become a facilitator for
> Those who depend on civility for Their continued control? Granting the
> possibility that at least to some degree "we are Them" do the books in
> effect advocate for a focus on interpersonal relations- where free will may
> be operative- as opposed to large scale grandiosity, which seems- any which
> way you might play it- to accelerate the inevitable?

Gandhi said, you must be the change you wish to see in the world. And
Pynchon I think agrees with that approach but there are times when you
must piss on the change you DON'T want to see in the world. Pynchon
wrote an essay for the New York Times Book Review about the Luddites, so
I would guess that he is sympathetic to their actions, which were not to
change the world, but against the change (industrial capitalism) being
forced on them and making their lives worse, taking them away from home
and community and into wage slavery.

Pynchon's books are full of escapist activities (dope, blues, comics),
but there comes a crisis that requires action to preserve a friendship
and love. The last scene of Gravity's Rainbow: you're enjoying a movie,
but there's a rocket slicing delta-t's in a mad flight to destroy you
and everyone in the whole theater, so reach over and hold another's
hand, touch . . .  Slothrop is too much part of the book, so he is lost
as we close the cover on the last page. But Tchitcherine is saved by
Geli's magic and Bodine is spending more time and thought with Trudi.
Both are AWOL before the end . . .  The gaucho anarchists' dream of a
new state in the Zone has turned into endless footage of von Goll
ranting nonsense.

The book itself is escapist, but points to what is less articifial,
action not for a new System but to hold on to life, maybe even humanize
the System a tiny bit.

Yours,
Eric R

There is a brief slice of time each of history's cycles, when the last
of the Elect has gone to his reward, that the Preterite enjoy a life
unfettered, the life their souls have promised them. Brief, though,
because a new Elect are soon choosing themselves . . .