MDDM Ch. 65 strange inconsistencies

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Mackin" <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 28, 2002 10:05 PM
Subject: Re: MDDM Ch. 65 strange inconsistencies


> Paul Mackin wrote:
>
> > The part of p-text directly connected with Christianity would be his
tendency to
> > dwell from time to time on the resurrection of the body.
>
> I might have expanded on this point to say the Christian doctrine of
preterition is
> used by Pynchon in a fairly sustaind manner. However he rather turns the
doctrine on
> its head. The preterites are the good guys and the  most deserving of
salvation even
> if they are not likely to get it.  Even this special Pynchonian take  on
things can
> be made to fit under the broad umbrella of Chritianity. The Last shall be
first and
> the first shall be last.
>
> P.
>

Does he really say so? It's Slothrop's forefather who wrote that "On
Preterition"-tractat (Episode 54, p. 555) which turns the binaries upside
down. And he claims this holiness for the preterite only because without the
opposite side the elect couldn't claim their electedness, because if there
would be no other, unelected side, how could they tell that they elect.
That's the logic of Saussure's language theory transferred to the religious
field. What is God without Satan? What would the whole Christian belief be
without the Antagonist (and of course: what would've been Marxism without
the Klassenfeind?) from the beginning, seducing Eve, trying it again on
Jesus (loosing the game this time) who, by the way, did not jump but did
respect gravity.

>
> The Last shall be first
> and the first shall be last.
>

But that's not what William Slothrop demands:

"William argued holiness for these "second sheep," without whom there'd be
no elect. (.). William felt that what Jesus was for the elect, Judas
Iscariot was for the preterite. Everything in the Creation has its equal and
opposite counterpart. How can Jesus be an exception?"" (555)

It's a difference if you merely turn the oppositions or if you are making
clear that binary oppositions are intrinsically hierarchical, and that
there's always one pole that claims to be priviledged by pointing out that
without *the other* there would be no *this*.

Otto

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