MDDM Ch. 70 Prolegomena

[Terrance]

Otto wrote:

HOW? 


> >
> >
> >   1) Carnival
> >   2) quest-motif serves to test philosophical truths
> >   3) the trilevelled construction of "earth," a "nether world"
> >   and an "olympus"
> >   4) dissolution or merging of identities, in particular, the
> >   motif of the double.
> >   5) extraordinary freedom of philosophical invention within
> >   the plot
> >   6) combination of free fantasy, symbolism and --on
> >   occasion--the mystical religious element with the crude
> >   naturalism of low life
> >   7) the concern with ultimate philosophical positions
> >   8) the experimental fantasticality in the handling of
> >   perspective which can imperceptibly shift from ant's to
> >   bird's view
> >   9) eccentric or scandalous behaviour--spectacular
> >   stomach-turning passages
> >   10) utopian--or, to be more accurate, dystopian--elements of
> >   the quest motif
> >   11) the juxtaposition of items normally distant, often in
> >   oxymoronic combinations
> >   12) the parody of various genres and the mixture of prose
> >   and verse diction
> >   13) the variety of styles
> >   15) topicality and publicistic quality--WWII novel that
> >   illustrates ideological issues of the 1960s
> 


Check out Robert L. McLaughlin's essay "Theories Of Land Tenure And The
Charismatic Line In Mason & Dixon, page 799, Oklahoma City University
Law Review, Vol. 24, #3, fALL 1999, 'Thomas Pynchon And The Law'

Doug hit it right on the nose--"Socage tenure becomes associated with an
ideology of control, in which land and people must be named, defined,
and categorized so as to be made understandable and controllable." 

See M&D.487 "ALL ARE TEXT" 

This idea, that the world is text to be read is ridiculed harshly by
Thomas Pynchon. 
The world is not a text to be read or written or controlled, although
this is the "book" many of his characters, even nations,  fall into.
This is the idea that most peoples of the world are the victims of. 

The world was here before the text and it will be here, we hope, long
after most of the texts humans have written are gone or have become
meaningless.  We may  write texts about the world, but in so doing we
don't create it, or create an alternative world, but only a textual one. 

If there is only one world who created it? 
Big question addressed by almost every religion that is or ever was. 

I don't smash religion here. I don't practice any religion and I'm
certainly not a christian. My gods if have any, are of this world and in
this world--the sun, the oceans, the waves and winds. But, I know, like
it or not, that the great world religions continue to govern the ways in
which the majority of human beings live in the world. 
You can blame religion for all our problems, but that's no different
than blaming man and women for all our problems. Kinda like what the
Ancient Jews came up when their world went wrong. You can blame
Christianity if you like, but it's a fools argument, it's  a sophomore's
rant,  bombastic polemics indeed. In M&D, Pynchon puts this sophomore's
rant where it belongs, in the mouth of a young lad home from college.
Education, in the West at least, involves secularization. It should,
although it doesn't, obviously, make more people more tolerant, more
mature. 

"for example, the Catholic Church). The individual is dominated by
tradition."

"One could view this as a Protestant mode of consciousness."

http://www.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0242.html

This kind of crap appeals to young rebels, young sophomores. And they
may need to have their ideas shaken up, but we can't take it too
seriously. 


for example, the Catholic
     Church). The individual is dominated by tradition.





Lots of different ideas on this one. Robert may reject the world,
calling it a christian text, but he can't deny what I wrote, the sun or
the moon or the wind or the smile on a human face. I said nothing about
a christian world. This is only Robert's way of tossing in the towel. 

on page 801 McLaughlin says, 

"I have argued elsewhere that the interpretive conundrum of Pynchon's
GR---...----can be addressed through Bakhtinian theory."

Theory! Only a theory. Useful, like the Postmodern theories of
literature or texts. All very useful provided we don't forget that we
are dealing with a text and a theory about it.  P's novels are not
postmodern because theorists of postmodernism have made them so. 

Moreover, postmodern theorists do not agree even on what makes a novel
postmodern. 
While there may be some consensus among theorists as to the obvious
elements of the postmodern, the differences are far more important.
Where they agree, more often than not, it when they admit that they can
not define postmodernism, but they can define Modernism. One of the most
obvious failings of postmodern theory is its failure, except when it
reduces Modernism to a bunch of bad christian platitudes, to distinguish
itself from Modernism. 

In any event, back to the book, the one about Catfish & the Worm. 


http://www.uga.edu/ugapress/books/shelf/0820316687.html