Bad Catholics

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: <RuudSaurins at aol.com>
To: <Pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 4:03 AM
Subject: Bad Catholics

> "All Together Now!"
>  fqmorris' posting regarding George Orwell's observations about
> catholic writers has made me curious.  Invasions of privacy
> notwithstanding, does anyone know whether TRP is a "practicing"
> catholic?  According to _The GR Companion_, events in GR,
> and possibly the narrative as well, is organized around important
> dates in the Roman Catholic liturgical calender.
> This would ordinarily lead me to believe that he is.  Simply curious
and...
>                            truly,
>                            Ruud
>

Ruud, ik denk van niet.

Part 1 of the novel has 21 chapters (Tarot)

Part 2  has 8 (infinity plus the number of the Enlightened One who has
climbed the seven steps to Enlightenment)

Part 3  has 32 (one half of a chessboard, but which one - black or white?)

Part 4 has 12 (the whole zodiac -- in astrology the 12th house [pisces]
stands for the disintegration, the unity of all opposites)
http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/part1.htm

I think all of these structural devices are about the over-determination of
symbols and not meant to be taken too serious. In my opinion Pynchon is
mocking all superstitious beliefs (including Science, Catholicism,
Puritanism, esoterical Hippie-ism incl. drug abuse), contrary to what
Douglas Lannark says when he speaks about astrology:

"(...) not only to depict a stylistic postmodern binary along the lines of
superstition vs. science, symbolism vs. realism, true vs. false, etc., but
also as a literary expansion, suggestive association, and
self-identification of many characters in his novels."
http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/horos1.htm

The first part of Douglas' sentence refers directly to our private
conversations about the topic. 

As a capricorn (asc. gemini) I'm bound to be sceptical :-)

But I've said all this before and will be beaten for it again.

Otto

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