Problems of Paranoia in thos Hollander Essays.2 of 50

[Terrance]

Eric Rosenbloom wrote:
> 
> I don't know Mr Hollander but I think he is not reading Pynchon's
> secrecy very well. It can be put into context. Paranoia was the
> post-modern mode, as creative torment was the modern. Both of them are
> means of creating books as analogs of dream (Three quarks for Muster
> Mark!). As dreams have no context outside of the dreamer, these books
> have meaning only in a melded composite of reader and writer. Your
> Modern approached that interface as a writer; your Potsmodern came as
> reader. Joyce led a public life, and Pynchon leads a private one as
> testament to letting readers be the writers. As paranoid as Pynchon may
> in fact be, he has sublimated it as an analog of reading and, opposing
> The Firm, he is also true to opposing the fetishizing of writers. He
> will not serve.
> U.S.W.
> 
> Yours,
> Eric R

Not sure if you don't know Mr. Hollander or his essays? 

In any event, I think you have identified the very heart of
the problem--paranoia. Of course the  postmodern vs. modern
mode is a very useful way of looking at this problem, if for
no other reason, but that it's the current critical way of
looking at this problem. 

Two essays, both are available online,  that you may want to
read.  

New Literary History 28.1 (1997) 87-109 "Postmodern
Perspective: The Paranoid Eye" by   Jerry Aline Flieger 

and 

RAIDS ON THE CONSCIOUS: PYNCHON'S LEGACY OF PARANOIA AND
THE TERRORISM OF UNCERTAINTY IN DON DELILLO'S RATNER'S STAR
by GLEN SCOTT ALLEN, Postmodern Culture_ v.4 n.2 (January,
1994) 

The problem of paranoia in those Hollander essays has also
to do with the public and private artist, although I don't
think it has all that much to do with reader/writer texts
and sublimated paranoia, dreams,  and analogs. 

The problem begins, as I said,  with step one, in Pater's
sense, where Hollander's reading gets hung up. H maintains
(for 20 odd years he has maintained), along with the claim
that P remains fixated on revenge,  that Pynchon's paranoia
follows a pattern or schema that can be confirmed by the
biographical/historical information (scarce as it may be),
that goes, "disinheritance leads to paranoia leads to
apocalypse." Pynchon's Inferno 1978

Disinheritance? Yes, Pynchon & Co., so says H, was brought
down by Chase National Bank, a Rockefeller interest. TRP
seeks revenge, he names names, but he does so cryptically
because he fears for his life.