GR 'Streets' (death and/or afterlife)

[Paul Mackin]

I suspect, since Terrance has been telling us to read Father Rapier,
this reference relates in part at least to de Chardin's idea of
convergence of matter toward a final unity (omega point), which for
Rapier rather comically becomes the reaching of "Critical Mass" where
technology has reached the point of development where there in no longer
the possibility for freedom. Also Rapier injects the unorthodox idea
that "they" may never die,. with the unfortunate consequence that the
despoiling of the earth and nature will go on unchecked, which is
equivalent to Pynchonian "no return" or "no way back." However Rapier
adds a "disclaimer" to the effect that perhaps it is still possible to
make "them" die if not in their beds but by violence. That's my
understanding of what Father Rapier is preaching in the Pynchonian Hell
scene.

P.
 

On Sun, 2003-04-20 at 09:44, Terrance wrote:
> Black, Joel D. "Probing the Post-Romantic Paleontology: Thomas Pynchon's
>   Gravity's Rainbow."  Boundary vol. 2 no. 8 (1980): 229-54.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> s~Z wrote:
> > 
> > "Because it's hard to get over the wonder of finding
> > that Earth is a living critter, after all these years
> > of thinking about a big dumb rock to find a body and
> > psyche, he feels like a child again, he knows that in
> > theory he must not attach himself, but still he is in
> > love with his sense of wonder, with having found it
> > again, even this late, even knowing he must soon let
> > it go. . . ." (GR, 590)
> > 
> > Here this view is presented as a hallucination experienced by Lyle Bland,
> > shortly before he gathers his family together to go Carlos Castaneda on
> > them.
> > 
> > "Around 9:30 Buddy left to see THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and Mrs. Bland
> > covered the serene face with a dusty chintz drape she'd received from a
> > cousin who had never understood her taste." (GR, 591)
> > 
> > So much for the substance of the Gaia reading of GR.