Chapter 45: Angels

[Dave Monroe]

"... now the Duck is a Fugitive, flying where it
wishes,-- often indeed visiting the Academy of
Sciences, where they have learn'd that the greater its
speed, the less visible it grows, until at around a
Thousand Toises per Minute, it vanishes entirely,--
but one of many newly-acquir'd Powers, bringing added
Urgency to finding it as quickly as possible, before
this 'Morphosis carries it beyond our Control.'" (M&D,
Ch. 37, 373-4)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0202&msg=65205&sort=date

Main Entry: -fuge
Function: noun combining form
Etymology: French, from Late Latin -fuga, from Latin
fugare to put to flight, from fuga

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

"...beneath it her Iron Confidence in the power
conferr'd by her Inedibility...being artificial and
deathless, as I was meat, and of the Earth...my only
hope was that her 'Morphosis would somehow carry her
quite beyond me, and soon." (M&D, Ch. 37, p. 380)

   "As to the Duck's actual Presence, Opinions among
the Pary continue to vary.[...] those more succeptible
to the shifts of Breeze between the Worlds, notably at
Twilight, claim to've seen the actual Duck, shimmering
into Visibility, for a few moments, then out again."
(M&D, Ch. 45, p. 448)

   "'Very well,-- could it be, that in the Years since
the Duck vanish'd, and despite the constant presence
of the Duplicate the World knows, Monsieur Vaucanson,
in his perusals of the Sky, has come to seek there
wonders more than merely Astronomickal?  For, having
no idea of where or how far his Creature's 'Morphosis
may've taken it, where look for Word of its Condition
with more hope of success than among the incorruptibly
divided Rings of Heaven?'
   "'Hold, hold,' Dixon with exagerrated gentleness,
'Mason, he...believes his Duck to've become a Planet,
's what tha're saying?'" (M&D, Ch. 45, p. 450)

   "Such is the Duck's Influence in the Camp, that
several Axmen approach the Revd upon the Topick of
Angels in general.  'For instnace,' carols young Nathe
McClean [...], 'tho' we know the Duck has been
transform'd by Love, what of the Angels,--'" (M&D, Ch.
45, p. 451)

>From Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, trans. J.B.
Leishman and Stephen Spender (New York: Norton, 1939
[1923]).  Rilke ...

"The Angel of the Elegies is the creature in whom that
transformation of the visible into the invisible we
are performing already appears complete ....  The
Anegl of the Elegies is the being who vouches for the
recogniation of a higher degree of reality in the
invisible.--Therefore 'terrible' to us, because we,
its lovers and transformers, atill depend on the
visible." (P. 87)

Leishman and Spender ...

   "The Angel may be described as the hypostatization
of the idea of a perfect conscousness--of a being in
whom the limitations and contradictions of present
human nature have been transcended, a being in whom
thought and action, insgight and achievement, will and
capability, the actual and the ideal, are one.  He is
both an inspiration and a rebuke, a source of
consolation and also a source of terror; for, while he
guarantess the validity of Man's highest apirations
and gives what Rilke would call a 'direction' to his
heart, he is at the same time a perpetual reminder of
man's immeasurable remoteness from his goal." (pp.
87-8)

As cited in ...

McLaughlin, Robert L.  "Pynchon's Angels and
   Supernatural Systems in Gravity's Rainbow."
   Pynchon Notes 22-23 (1988): 25-33.

"This is the edition of the Elegies Pynchon
acknowledges on his [GR's] copyright page" (p. 32, n.
3).  McLaughlin's contention, however, is that "The
Rilkean interpretation, however, is not the only
possible explanation for the angels" (p. 27).  Fair
enough, though, vis a vis The Duck, it does seem to
come into play here, albeit perhaps somewhat
parodically, parodying as well scientific/SF/cyberpunk
aspirations toward artificial intelligence, e.g. ...

Kurzweil, Ray.  In the Age of Spiritual Machines:
   When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence.
   New York: Viking, 1998.

http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/packages/us/kurzweil/excerpts/prologue/prologue.htm

http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/packages/us/kurzweil/excerpts/exmain.htm

Or ...

"Wintermute was hive mind, decision maker, effecting
change in the world outside.  Neuromancer was
personality.  Neuromancer was immortality.
Marie-France must have built something into
Wintermute, the compulsion that had driven the thing
to free itself, to unite with Neuromancer." 

William Gibson, Neuromancer (New York: Ace, 1984), p.
269 ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0203&msg=65478&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0202&msg=65202&sort=date

And, as always ...

"If our world survives, the next great challenge to
watch out for will come - you heard it here first -
when the curves of research and development in
artificial intelligence, molecular biology and
robotics all converge. Oboy. It will be amazing and
unpredictable, and even the biggest of brass, let us
devoutly hope, are going to be caught flat-footed. It
is certainly something for all good Luddites to look
forward to if, God willing, we should live so long."

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html

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