Symbiosis or S&M Double Stuff

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/21/02 1:09:55 AM, johnbonbailey at hotmail.com writes:

<< I think that Pynchon's novels encourage the reader to be a little 
suspicious 
of fidelity, which often seems to be aligned with Them; I also agree that 
fidelity (in all senses) is probably a very useful term to keep in mind.<<

Yes, a "term to keep in mind." As early as the Pitt and Pliny reference
there has been a certain sense of skewdness. Silence v. jabber, where's 
the meeting?
 
<<The Jesuit Telegraph, it seems to me, is very high-fidelity, low entropy, 
cold, sharp, focused, nearly invisible - these are dangerous qualities to 
characters more usually aligned with slippage, fumbling, error, exile, bad 
jokes and frontal hemispheres. An overly efficient machine or an excessively 
dutiful servant will only cause trouble.>>

It's those Chinese characters that grabbed me. They would seem to
indicate a certain lack of bi-directionality, especially if one is hooked 
on phonics. Palimpsests rather than palindromes. Still, in a pinch, 
there is a certain equivalency between the boys. On the road from 
Philly to Mt. Vernon each had his own pot.

<<GR takes this even further: the novel seems to me to be extremely  
sympathetic towards double agents, Judas, etc. This is a difficult project 
to undertake. I don't know how successful it is. It's not just that double 
agents straddle both sides of a line; I think Pynchon isn't too keen on the 
lines to begin with, and anyone who refuses to stick to one side or the 
other is probably worth watching.>>

That curly ampersand, a bridge, but this is no zero sum game.