MDDM Ch. 50 Golem

[jbor]

on 7/5/02 8:54 PM, Dave Monroe at davidmmonroe at yahoo.com wrote:

> "It sounds enough like the Frenchman's Duck to make
> him cautious." (M&D, Ch. 50, p. 485)

Yes, there does seem to be somewhat of a connection being made here in the
juxtaposition of Vaucanson's automated duck, the Golems (of Prague, and of
the South Mountain Back-Country), and Jesus's boyhood dabbling in
animatronics. I can't see that any positive or negative valency is being
accorded in the text to science or "Miracle" or social/political rebellion
(or domestic labour) as the creative/productive impetus of these various
man-made mechanical marvels: it's more a type of hyponymy on Pynchon's part
isn't it, a sort of cataloguing of various examples of preindustrial
robotics?

best