Bitz of lies

[Terrance]

Philosophers find their way into his P's texts, as scientists do, not so
much because P writes a fiction
of ideas or even an encyclopedic fiction or even  because P understands
more than your average engineer about science,   but because he writes a
literature that is very much 20th century American.  Also, I suspect
that the philosophical ideas and the scientific theories in the fiction
can be best understood as the grand secularizing forces of the 20th
century that P became so very interested in after reading Henry Adams. 

But, just playing around here, Leibniz. 

In that letter to Hirsch Pynchon says, 

  "And German Christianity being perhaps the most perfect
  expression of the whole Western/analytic"linear"/alienated
  shtick. It is no accident that Leibniz was co-inventor of
  calculus..." 

P is interested in Mr. L as a Christian, specifically a German
Christian.

Science, modern science, and modernization for that matter, involves a
process
of secularization; that is, it systematically displaces religious
institutions, beliefs, and practices, substituting for them those of
reason and science. 

In P's novels this process is never complete. This partly due to the
fact that the fundamental precepts (in Leibniz for example, these belong
to God) are not translatable and/or not capable of being expressed with
the language of science or math or whatever. . So, Pointsman of GR fame,
is not quite a scientist. On the other hand, he is, but he is also a
priest and a knight searching for the grail-the word. 

This process was first observable in Christian Europe toward the end of
the
17th century. It is possible that there is something inherently
secularizing about Christianity, for no other religion seems to give
rise spontaneously to secular  beliefs.
At any rate, once invented in Europe, especially Protestant Europe,
secularization was carried as part of  the "package" of industrialism
that was exported to the non-European world. Wherever modern European
cultures  have impinged,
they have diffused secularizing currents into traditional religions and
non-rational ideologies.


Got any Ice 9? Hot as hell here and we've got a drought. The Mosquito
Coast. They made a movie of it. Good read. Some say the world will end
in fire
.from what I've tasted of desire I go with those that favor
fire
or something like that. "This is the great invention of our time."
page 18 One Hundred Years of Solitude. 


28. The only immediate object of our perceptions which exists outside of
us is God and in him alone is our light. 

29. Yet we think directly by means of our own ideas and not through
God's. 

30. How God inclines our souls without necessitating them; that there
are no grounds for complaint; that we must not ask why Judas sinned
because
this free act is contained in his concept, the only question being why
Judas
the sinner is admitted to existence, preferably to other possible
persons;
concerning the original imperfection or limitation before the fall and
concerning
the different degrees of grace. 

Mr. L, DoM

First the light: 

So God is the light. The sun. The light of the soul. "He is the light
that lighteth every man that comes into the world."  

Now the light (recall that Wicks has this wonderful little poem about
god and the light and planets) does not shine equally on all monads. 


Mere monads may have perception, but souls have perception that is more
distinct. What's more, the souls have perceptions and memory too. 

I watched a TV  program one time, there were these very intelligent
primates in the bush, they made tools and they worked together on
various projects. However, because of their very limited memories, they
never thought much about the future. Kinda like teenagers. Not thinking
about the future, they will never build the
Brooklyn bridge or a WTC memorial or send rockets to the moon. 

And the big kid the back, the one with the Neil Young T-shirt who talks
like Buddy Hacket because he's got more metal in his mouth than all the
Slavic girls in the eight grade, says, "is that a good thing?" 



No, it seems that after they have fashioned a tool they can't even
remember to
put it into a tool box  so they can use it the next day. No tool box?
Can't be very postmodern now can they? Every day they build a new tool
to do the same old job. What does Arrent call them? Homo-Laborers? In
any event it takes a very big memory and  some very big thought about
the future to  build complex human projects and
civilizations. 

To Mr. L,   these souls with big memories have knowledge of things
eternal and true. These truths, so Mr. L holds, are necessary truths. 
They are in fact, nothing less than God in thought and action. 



After reading V. and GR, one might conclude that P did not get his
notion of the light from L. 

Did Leibnits ever talk about guardian angels? I think so, but I can't
remember. Recall that Wicks says that a Guardian angel wafted them to
shore after their battle at sea. Of course he is talking to the kids.
Kinda silly and not very scientifik. The sea captain in that scene is
showing off his skills, his scintific calculating competence, ever
mindful that our boys are men of science and reason. Of course he sends
one sailor up the mast to sniff the wind. 

Is Mason a man of science? Haunted by ghosts and in touch with all sorts
of guilty "catholic" melancholic superstitions, we should have our
doubts.  Is Dixon, that adventurous anthropological party animal, a man
of science?  Not really! Both men seem to believe in God, the light in
the soul,  Although they have very different views of the darkness. In
any event, this old Christian notion of a Guardian angel is not at war
with the sciences. With science, we get a secularization that splits man
off, alienates him. He tries to find a away out of the dark anti-Patonic
cave. In the process he fragments the light in the Gnostic sense. 

I guess if one has such an angel, one is never alone. So, when Benny's
pal Angel
gets drunk and  is dragged from the sewer by the boss, Benny has to
manage the light and the gun. Now that's a conflict sustained in P's
fiction.  Benny drops the flashlight and Stencil is shot in the ass. 



 

  Here in the novel M&D, as in V., as in GR, there is something about
German Christianity that is opposed to the Soul in the Stone (to put it
into GR's context).  Or, as in V., where it is most apparent,  the 
Catholic fecundity of Mary in the womb of rock will be blasted away by
Germany's bombings. These are more historical and clearly more religious
than scientific. 
And as P will explore in GR, involve the German economy and its 
"catch-up phase"
in  modernization,   rationalization, secularization. All this might
suggest a Luddite's vision. Clearly the secularized and technological
Violence is nothing
new, only more powerful, more dangerous, more insane, if not more
rational. 



What was old Leibnits up to besides tossing cannon   balls? Didn't he
turn to China? He searched for a "principle   of all principles."  Why?
Why to reconcile the   paradigms of the ancient, medieval, and modern,  
philosophers, not to mention scientists, alchemists, and cabalists. 

Reconciliation for Leibnits does not involve dialectic.
So, since TRP is very interested in putting all these things
together--ancient, medieval, and modern,  philosophers...scientists,
priests....alchemists, and cabalists...and
so on and on, it's worth considering if his method has anything in
common with Mr. L.

Yes and No. 


In P we find lots of mirrors. These are very important to the novel V.,
less so in GR, where the camera and photography replace the mirror. 

In Mr. L, if I'm not mistaken, the soul is a mirror reflecting the
Divinity.  The divinity is the
..it's too hot boys, gotta go. 

If you pray, please pray for a peaceful day when Bush's boy takes over
Colombia. 

God bless, 

T