GR 'Streets'

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 2003-04-13 at 10:31, Terrance wrote:

> I have to admit that my exposure to Catholic theology as a kid, was,
> well...very intense. As an alter boy I attended more funerals by the
> time I was 7 than most people will if they live to be 100. At funerals,
> priests talk about nothingness. But that's really not the point. 
> 
> The Text defines nothingness as a theological term. Readers of GR can
> expect to be challenged with arcane and esoteric theological concepts
> and allusions to obscure and recondite religious texts. Nothingness may
> be considered as such, but it is a fundamental theological concept of
> Christianity and everywhere it is discussed ( St. Paul,  Augustine,
> Aquinas, St. Thomas...on and on....) it discussed  as it pertains to God
> and the creation, to Death and Sin and Christ and
> Redemption/Salvation.   It is a theological term and it spoken by a man
> ministering to soldiers, we can assume they are for the most part,
> Christians,  who are in the middle of of war and who are seeing death
> and facing death. 

St. Paul has ideas like

the power to create being from nothingness

without God there is only nothingness


Is anyone out there a Christian Scientist?
Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health speaks pretty often of the
Nothingness of Sin and the Nothingness of Evil.

I looked for "nothingness of death" but didn't find it.
Forgot to look for "nothingess of illness"

P.


> 
> This Fragmented Episode and this section ("Streets") of it can quite
> easily fit into another part of the text. In fact, as S~Z has
> demonstrated it can be dovetailed into the rocket/cross/tree sections. I
> want to look at two other possibilities. Since Slothrop discovers
> "Critical Mass" (Pynchon  puns on the Christian Mass) in this episode,
> in this particular section (Streets"), I think that a closer look at
> Episode 24 (GR.537) might prove nothingness or nothing or whatever. 
> 
> This episode opens with: 
> 
> "Dear Mom, I put a couple of few people in Hell today ...."  
> 
>                     --Fragment, thought to be from
>                       the Gospel of Thomas
>                       (Oxyrhynchus papyrus number classified) 


Love this section.

> 
> 
> The words "a couple few people" sounds like the implied author to me. 
> This papyrus exists (1905), but of course this sentence is Pynchon's
> own. He does this all the time. We can look it up or not. In the Gospel
> of St. Thomas, nothingness is one of the principle themes. 
> 
> So, were in a kind of Hell. Providence is a city (another Pun) and we
> Questions of Heresy and then we get to Father Rapier's preaching against
> Return. We get another allusion, this time it is Teilhard de Chardin.
> Return is is Teilhard's concept. It is a response to Nothingness and
> "critical mass." 
> 
> TBC