A sketch of Pynchonian politics

[Jane O' Sweet]

Phil Wise wrote:

 But,

> to Pynchon...
> 
> Pynchon's "They" system in Gravity's Rainbow is undoubtedly totalitarian.  Not only does the paranoid/anti-paranoid structure of control They employ influence the thoughts and behaviours of all the characters, including the Counterforce, which is why the Counterforce fails, but this structure keeps the preterite forever looking upward with awe at those who have "succeeded".  

I agree, but there is more to WHY the conterforce fails.
Again it's a **religious** struggle, a deep conflict in the
hearts and minds and souls  of MAN and his Gods. 

It's the SPIRIT of capitalism and the PROTESTANT ETHIC. So
on and on. The S&M relationship in Pynchon's fiction is a
religious bond. I hate to keep saying this, but it's too
important to be ignored. 

Of Slothrop, the narrator notes,  "so well have They busted
the sod praries of his brain, tilled and sown there, and
subsidised him not to grow anything of his own...", while
all of us, "as long as we can see them, stare at them, those
massively moneyed, once in a while. As long as they allow us
a glimpse, however rarely. We need that. And how they know
it - how often, under what conditions...".   The narrator,
then, does not just restrict his observations to the
characters, but brings in the world outside the text,
suggesting that his readers are similarly susceptable.

hmmmmmmmmmmm, this is a big looking glass & a very big hole,
Alice.  I doubt I'm going to follow the rabbit. 

> 
> That there is no escape from Their System is made difinitively clear at the end of the book as "all of us" sit in the Orpheus Theatre awaiting, completely oblivious, the Rocket that will destroy us.  

No one has ever left the Firm and no one ever will. 


"They" are responsible for the plummeting rocket. It is
Weissmann's project; he now numbers among "the successful
academics, the Presidential advisers, the token
intellectuals who sit on boards of directors" (749). Pynchon
comments that, in searching for his fate, we should "[l]ook
high, not low" (749), high, where They are.  

AND where are THEY? We have to get some of that burping soda
that charlie and his grandfather drink in WillY Wonker 
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, float up the through the
rabbit's hole and step through the looking glass. And who
are THEY on the "other side"? IBM? Bush and the Nazis?  and
oh no I think I'll stay with humpty dumpty and all the
king's horses and all the king's men and even with a little
yellow yoke on my face, compliments of Mr. Pynchon's mean
ass narrators I'll feel better inside the text. Or as the
ground hog in Whinny the Pooh tells Christopher Robin, "I'm
not in the book you knooooooooooooooooooow!" As he steps
into a hole. 

Otherwise, where are THEY? They are the gods of course, so
look up. 

but what about those  successful academics, the Presidential
advisers, the token intellectuals who sit on boards of
directors, Ace? 

Of course this is where his SPIRIT is. 



I wonder if his spirit haunts academic economists that have
such faith in the economic system of free markets that they
could believe that growth is "potentially" infinite, if only
we loosen controls we have developed over it.  A system
capable of infinite growth must, logically, first overcome
all barriers, including the barriers that people have in
their own minds that prevent them from being totally
committed "enterprise personalities".

lost me???


>