Pynchon's "knewspeak"

[vze422fs at verizon.net]

on 2/22/03 5:11 AM, jbor at jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> on 22/2/03 5:22 AM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:
> 
>> Yes and no. Milton's Satan, as Milton made him (at least on the purely
>> Christian level, if no the political level)  is pathetic.
> 
> Some critics argue that Satan becomes the "hero" of _Paradise Lost_
> precisely because "evil" is always intrinsically a far more interesting
> category and prospect for the artist than "goodness". That Satan's character
> captured Milton's imagination -- almost unconsciously, despite his devout
> faith. The same sorts of arguments crop up in some of the critical
> interpretations focusing on Blicero in _GR_, but I don't buy the analogy
> because I don't accept that Pynchon's worldview is circumscribed by
> Christianity. I know we disagree on this point.
> 
> best
> 
> 
>> But it's not
>> impossible to have sympathy for a an angel that falls because he is not
>> content with heavenly bliss and  aspires to equal the most high (an
>> oxymoronic thing to consider). His pride, his ambition, lands him in
>> hell because God is all powerful. He deceives his horrid crew (like Ahab
>> with great rhetoric) and the Mother of mankind, bringing death into the
>> world and all our woe with the loss of eden. So begins the history of
>> man. He's got to be a hero. Right? A fortunate fall for Adam, the coming
>> of Christ, these things are all down to Satan. He is the author of all.
>> Blicero, like Satan and Ahab, is a god-man. I like him. I admire him. I
>> pity him. He is a beautiful a character, perhaps Pynchon's most
>> interesting of all. But he's a Nazi. He's a bad guy. He's a killer. He
>> worships Death and negates Life.
> 
He looks to the stars, wheeling in their perfect forms, and knows the
despair of futility.