MDDM Ch. 65 strange inconsistencies

[Doug Millison]

At 2:04 PM -0400 7/28/02, Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:
>
>I can see no evidence that "the infrequent but intense focus on
>small moments of human solidarity characterized by love and
>acceptance in Pynchon's texts" have anything particular to do
>with christianity. [snip the rest of a thoughtful post]


Fair enough, although you seem to be answering an argument that I haven't
made.  The treatment of Christianity (and other religious/spiritual
traditions-- he seems to have some relatively sophisticated things to say
about Buddhism in M&D that  might find benfit from being situated in the
rich inter-faith dialogue currently taking place among Buddhists,
Christians, physicists, etc.) in Pynchon's texts is nuanced and
problematic, he returns to this material again and again in his writing, he
takes it seriously, there is much to be said about it  -- that's about as
much as I'm willing to put forward as any sort of "definitive" statement
about Pynchon and Christianity/religion/spirituality.  I've said before in
this forum that I find Pynchon's stance analogous to Job's, sometimes
appearing to rage against a God who lets horrible things happen in creation
but not willing to give up the notion of God, even as his texts show in
abundant detail how humans manage to make life a hell for one another
without any need for God's intervention -- I think there's plenty of
evidence to support such an argument, that P wobbles first one way and then
another and remains exceedingly difficult to pin down but at all times
within a perspective that includes "God" and "existence" in modes other
than specifically "human"  as described in the post-Enlightenment
scientific-materialistic worldview. I think a particular reader's response
to Pynchon's texts  wrt religion and spirituality says as much about  that
reader's location  on the believer/non-believer continuum as it says about
Pynchon's texts.