Marshall McLuhan & Pynchon

[Hunter Felt]

Hello, I've lurking here in the last, jeez, year and a half or so, and 
usually don't have much to add, but I've been reading Marshall McLuhan's 
"Understanding Media:  The Extensions of Man," and he seems to be working 
with some of the same ideas that Pynchon uses in his novels, and I wonder if 
anyone sees the connections.

Now, I'm only half-way through, and so far it seems like an interesting 
mixture of legimate insights and pure baloney.  However, his exploration of 
technology and media as a projection of mankind, and his description of the 
ways different media change and transform human society and even human 
consciousness seem to be similar to at least one of Pynchon's projects 
throughout his writing career.  I'm not saying Pynchon agrees (or has even 
read) "Understanding Media" (although considering the book's popularity with 
1960's intellectuals and psuedo-intellectuals, it's not inconceivable that 
he has), but I think that they are working with some of the same subjects 
during the same time period, so I find a lot of parallels.

Although McLuhan clearly exagerrates the importance of the way media (from 
spoken language to automation, which I'm eager to reach) has shaped society, 
I think he at least is working along the same line of Pynchon in some 
respects.  In "V," Pynchon deals with the closing devide between human 
beings and machines (McLuhan uses the Narcissus myth to illustrate 
humankind's inabililty to see technology and media as extentions of 
ourselves).  "Crying of Lot 49," is, among many other things, an extended 
investigation into the ramifications of postal systems, and, in general, 
methods of transmitting information (from radio to television to movies to 
letters to Jacobean revenge plays).  "Gravity's Rainbow" deals with just 
about everything, and lays particular emphasis on the connections between 
humans and the technology they create (at the end, Gottfried and the Rocket 
become one).  "Vineland" deals explicitly with the effects of television.  
"Mason & Dixon" goes back in time and explores the beginning of American 
society, when the technologies that have shaped modern society were in their 
infancy.

(Of course that's not what these novels are "about," but one cannot deny 
that the relationship between humanity and its technology is very important 
for Pynchon.  As it has been for just about every writer.)

I think that McLuhan, on occasion, hits upon subjects that find their way 
into Pynchon's fiction:

"Just as when information levels rise in physics and chemistry, it is 
possible to use anything for fuel or fabric or building material, so with 
electric technology all solid goods can be summoned to appear as solid 
commodities by means of information circuits set up in the organic patterns 
that we call "automation" and information retrieval.  Under electric 
technology the entire business of man becomes learning and knowing.  In 
terms of what we still consider an "economy" (the Greek word of a 
household), this means that all forms of wealth result from the movement of 
information.  The problem of discovering occupations or employment may prove 
as difficult as wealth is easy."
- "Media as Translators"  Understanding Media, Signet Classic paperback, 
1966. p.65.

"By continuously embracing technologies, we relate ourselves to them as 
servomechanisms."
- "The Gadget Lovers."  p. 55

Plus, McLuhan discusses the impact of technologies on tribal cultures, which 
may shed light on the plight of the Hereros in "V" and "Gravity's Rainbow."  
He parallels the plight of tribes coping with the introductiong of the 
written word with modern man unable to cope with modern technology:    "We 
are no more prepared to encounter radio and TV in our literate milieu than 
the native of Ghana is able to cope with the literacy that takes him out of 
his collective tribal world and beaches him in individual isolation.  We are 
as numb in our new electric world as the native involved in our literate and 
mechanical culture."  p. 31.

And I think McLuhan's most relevant point deals with how excessive 
information and technology "numbs" the human mind, which I think might be 
reflected in the emotionally detached fiction that has been dubbed 
"post-modern."  The overload of information is not only one of Pynchon's 
themes, it's one of his techniques (how else can one justify the much 
too-muchness of "Gravity's Rainbow.")  The massive amount of information can 
distance one further and further from The Truth (the communicative property 
of entropy in "Entropy.")

There's billions of other parallels, but I just wanted to throw this out 
there.

- Hunter A. Felt



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