Pynchon and Automata

[Terrance]

John Bailey wrote:
> 
> The duck is different, though, isn't it (she)? In V. the progress towards
> the inanimate is kind of scary; in M&D, the inanimate is progressing towards
> life. Now we're looking at artificial life, artificial intelligence, the
> desires of an automaton, the loneliness of the same...

I don't see how this is different than what Pynchon presents in V. 
In fact, this novel seems to have been written (a good portion of it
anyway) when V. was written. 

In V. we have both as well, that is, humans who are becoming inanimate
and inanimates
that are becoming human and sentient. 

 Moreover, the most important theme of V., in my opinion, is the machine
rising to a state, not equal to humanity, but  above humanity (the
Dynamo replaces the Virgin),  just as in this book,  the duck seems to
become an angel and the humans are become used up machines--junk, car
bodies piled up in Elmira's junk yard or blood stains on the wall of a
museum. Of course all of this ties into the hunt for Christ and the
eating of his body and the drinking of his blood. 

This past Sunday, on the Church Calendar, Jesus goes up on a Mountain
(the most significant Mountain in the story from Genesis to Apocalypse)
with Peter, James, John (perfectly chosen men) and there are Moses and
Elijah. This is when the sky God on the mountain becomes a fertility God
of the Earth--the changing of the God. And the rest, as they say, is the
Hunt. Jesus becomes the White God of the North, the fertility god, the
Son of the mother earth. Just prior to this big change up on the
mountain, Jesus has been feeding. But he has been talking some pretty
strange stuff, blasphemous stuff about eating flesh and drinking blood.