"What would TRP do?

[Cyrus]

prozak at anus.com wrote:

> What do you make of his frequent mysterious neo-masonic 
>references?
>

Nothing mysterious about that. It's all laid out bare in GR 580-591, the 
story of Lyle Bland. Especially p. 587: "There is a theory going around 
that the USA was and still is a gigantic Masonic plot under the ultimate 
control of the group known as the Illuminati.[...]" But remember, it is 
literature, not a treatise. He uses this wide-spread theory for the 
purpose of rendering the mind of the reader even more responsive to the 
atmosphere of conspiracy permeating the entire novel. Many people I know 
have confessed being unable to read GR because of "what it did" to their 
minds. That's part of it. Pynchon wants the reader to feel as threatened 
and "paranoid" as Slothrop.

Cyrus