Paranoia: What is a character?

[Paul Mackin]

Decided to read over my own post. I SHOULD have said it WASN'T as important
than Blicero was sadomasochistic than  that that part of the book was.

        P.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 11:06 AM
Subject: Re: Paranoia: What is a character?


> I do think it makes sense to respond emotionally to fictional characters
and
> the fact that they are robots is no barrier. Would never want to say that
> talking about the psychological or ethical states of people in novels is
not
> interesting. It would be hard to read a novel in which one could not
> identify is some way with a character or two. But in order to have
criticism
> or analysis (that word again) the character needs to be seen as functional
> with regard to the book--I think is the point. So it's not that any one
> person in the book is paranoid but the book itself is. Just as it was as
> important that Blicero was a sadomasochist (if that's what he was) than
that
> chunks of Gravity's Rainbow are sadomasochistic But back to paranoia. In
M&D
> there's apparently a whole lot of paranoia going on. What can we take it
to
> mean? I don't have any quick answer but will think about it.
>
>         P.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Terrance" <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 7:39 AM
> Subject: Re: Paranoia: What is a character?
>
>
> >
> >
> > Paul Mackin wrote:
> > >
> > > I think I now see the approach Paul is attempting and see the
> advantages.
> >
> > I too see. Excellent! And he is doing a nice job here for us and I
> > certainly appreciate it. My favorite Pynchon "character" is Carl
> > Barrington. Now it may not make a lot of sense to talk a about an
> > imaginary boy assembled like a robot from junkyard parts and Wishes and
> > dreams and pre-Freudian Return, but being perhaps a bit younger than you
> > Paul, sometimes I can't help it. Of course, this could also be due to my
> > having read too much Dickens and Swift (not Tom Swift) as a boy or my my
> > having been raised in a church literally at the bottom of Bolingbroke's
> > dump.
> >
> > "One reason Humans remain young so long, compar'd with other Creatures,
> > is that the young are useful in many ways, among them in providing
> > daily, by way of the evil Creatures and Slaughter they love, a Denial of
> > Mortality clamorous enough to allow their Elders release, if only for
> > moments in time, from its Claims upon Attention." MD.37
> >
> > "Look, for example, at Victor's account of how he assembles and animates
> > his creature. He must, of course, be a little vague about the details,
> > but we're left with a procedure that seems to include surgery,
> > electricity (though nothing like Whale's galvanic extravaganzas),
> > chemistry, even, from dark hints about Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus,
> > the still recently discredited form of magic known as alchemy. What is
> > clear, though, despite the commonly depicted Bolt Through the Neck, is
> > that neither the method nor the creature that results is mechanical."
> >
> > "This is one of several interesting similarities between "Frankenstein"
> > and an earlier tale of the Bad and Big, "The Castle of Otranto" (1765),
> > by Horace Walpole, usually regarded as the first Gothic novel. For one
> > thing, both authors, in presenting their books to the public, used
> > voices not their own. Mary Shelley's preface was written by her husband,
> > Percy, who was pretending to be her. Not till 15 years later did she
> > write an introduction to "Frankenstein" in her own voice. Walpole, on
> > the other hand, gave his book an entire made-up publishing history,
> > claiming it was a translation from medieval Italian. Only in his preface
> > to the second edition did he admit authorship."
> >
> > "The novels are also of strikingly similar nocturnal origin: both
> > resulted from episodes of lucid dreaming. Mary Shelley, that ghost-story
> > summer in Geneva, trying to get to sleep one midnight, suddenly beheld
> > the creature being brought to life, the images arising in her mind "with
> > a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie." Walpole had been
> > awakened from a dream, "of which, all I could remember was, that I had
> > thought myself in an ancient castle... and that on the uppermost
> > bannister of a great stair-case I saw a gigantic hand in armour."
> >
> >
> > "In Walpole's novel, this hand shows up as the hand of Alfonso the Good,
> > former Prince of Otranto and, despite his epithet, the castle's resident
> > Badass. Alfonso, like Frankenstein's creature, is assembled from pieces
> > -- sable-plumed helmet, foot, leg, sword, all of them, like the hand,
> > quite oversized -- which fall from the sky or just materialize here and
> > there about the castle grounds, relentless as Freud's slow return of the
> > repressed. The activating agencies, again like those in "Frankenstein,"
> > are non-mechanical. The final assembly of "the form of Alfonso, dilated
> > to an immense magnitude," is achieved through supernatural means: a
> > family curse, and the
> > intercession of Otranto's patron saint."
> >
> > The craze for Gothic fiction after "The Castle of Otranto" was grounded,
> > I suspect, in deep and religious yearnings for that earlier mythic time
> > which had come to be known as the Age of Miracles. I ways more and less
> > literal, folks in the 18th century believed that once upon a time all
> > kinds of things had been possible which were no longer so.
> >
> >
> >
> > But if we do insist upon fictional violations of the laws of nature --
> > of space, time,
> > thermodynamics, and the big one, mortality itself -- then we risk being
> > judged by the literary mainstream as Insufficiently Serious.
> >
> >
> > Mortality, Morality, and soap.
> > Morality, Mortality and soap.
> > I'm a dope to deny that elephants fly.
> > That children have secrets they've pulled from the sky.
> > That dreams are not wishes come true.
> > But sometimes I deny
> > all that money can buy
> > and my dish runs away with my spoon.
> >
> > Tea!
> > oh, it's time for tea
> >
> > early in the morning when the kettles a boil
> > I could swear that its singing cod liver oil
> > oh doctor oh doctor
> > oh dear dr. john
> > your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong
> > that I swear by me life
> > I'm goin down in the soil
> > if me wife don't stop drinkin your cod liver oil
> >
> > Thanks Paul and Paul
> >
>