Snappycrossdresser

[Otto]

> On Sat, 2004-10-16 at 09:19, Otto wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2004-10-15 at 15:56, Otto wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Would anyone care to state
> > > >
> > > > yes
> > > >> > > > >in a few concise preferably grammatical
> > > > > sentences
> > > >
> > > > no
> > > >
> > > > >what makes Pynchon po-mo?
> > > > >
> > > > > Just wondered.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > the reversal of cause and effect
> > > Roger sez he's not quite ready to give up on cause and effect.
> > >
> > > There's also the rocket striking before it's heard.
> > >
> > > These are possibly nods to Derrida's cause and effect deconstruction.
> > > But let's face it. The reversal of cause and effect is nothing in
> > > itself. If it has any importance at all, it would be some implication
> > > about the use of language to produce fixed truth.
> > >
> >
> > But that's exactly the point. The possibility of producing a fixed truth
> > by language is rather limited because of it's binary structure of
> > significant and significate, because of the différance.
>
> If one has faith in, and is convinced by, Derridean methodology, every
> binary opposition can be deconstructed including
> deconstruction/logocentrism.  One example is not better than any other
> in demonstrating language breakdown or apparent breakdown.

Right, therefore no revelation at the end of COL49. One metaphor is shifting
the meaning to another metaphor, it's a labyrinth of signs we're wading
through in P's novels. Have you ever noted how carefully he worked every
possible meaning of the term "lot" into the novella, all those connotations?
I guess that's what he critisizes in the "Slow Learner"-introduction, but
nevertheless makes the novel a good example.

> Mention of
> possible cause and effect reversal in GR is not in itself, as I recall
> anyway, a deconstruction. It's part of a rather fantastic tale. But
> even if the c and e thing were deconstruction, I would still prefer you
> showed how the effects of language breakdown appear in the book.  Being
> able to do so might more definitively throw Pynchon into the po-mo camp.
> That's what I think you should try to do to bolster your claim that GR,
> say, is a postmodern novel. I have faith in you to make a better case.
>
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > binary oppositions, unity of opposites, entropy, chaos,
> > > > indeterminacy
> > > >
> > > There's a big OVERdeterminancy. With the location of Slothrup's  sex
> > > conquests determining where the V-2s come down. Or is that just
> > > prediction?
> > >
> >
> > That's a violation of the laws of statistics.
>
> What law of statistics is that? It's a case of determinacy, I'd say,
> though of course a fanciful one.
> >

But it is never said who determines. It is impossible, absolutely improbable
according to Roger's rocket statistics and according to Pointsman's
behaviorism.

> > > > Pilgrim's progress and pentecost postmodern (no salvation, no
> > revelation)
> > >
> > > But there were angels appearing to the dying.
> > >
> >
> > If those people were dying how could they tell? You may believe
> > in angels, I don't.
>
> Not a question of what I believe in but what turns up in the book. The
> appearance of the supernatural in P is part of what might make him a
> pomo writer. You seemed to imply the reverse.
>

It is rather the deconstruction of the supernatural than its appearance in
Pynchon's novels that makes him a pomo writer. He's following Rilke in
turning the Guardian Angel into a terrible angel: "Beauty is nothing but the
beginning of Terror" -- there again you have the binary opposition. But the
supernatural (which includes every religion and other superstitious belief)
is only one of those logocentric Master Narratives (God, History, Truth)
that is deconstructed in postmodern literature. Take the first sentence of
Gaddis' "A Frolic of His Own" for example:
"You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law."

>
> >
> > >Angels are beings that reveal things.
> >
> > "Who, if I screamed, would hear me among the angelic orders?
> > And even if one of them suddenly pressed me against his heart,
> > I would fade in the strength of his stronger existence.
> > For Beauty is nothing but the beginning of Terror
> > that we're still just able to bear, and why we adore it
> > is because it serenely disdains to destroy us.
> > Every angel is terrifying."
> > (Rilke)
> >
> > > >
> > > > re-writing of official history
> > >
> > > Yes, but should the rewritings always be paranoias? This would give
> > > revisionist history a bad name.
> > >
> >
> > What's paranoid about Charles Mason & Jeremiah Dixon having a good smoke
> > with George Washington, making fun of the "historical truth" that
> >Washington grew hemp *and* making fun of the hippie-assertion* that he
> > smoked it?
> >
> OK, that's pretty unparanoid.
>
> > *in R.A. Wilson's "Illuminatus"
> >
> > I think it's more important to question first everything that is
> > presented to us as a historical truth. Don't want to point to
>> WMD's here & now but it's the most recent example.
> > If I were a feudal Arab ruler I would develop paranoia.
>
> I don't think the Bush version of the WMD thing will ever get accepted
> either by conventional or revisionist historians. Anyway we're talking
> about P novels.
> >

Which are novels including much about different wars, and I have no reason
whatsoever to believe that the opinion expressed in "GR" isn't meant to be
valid for every war. Don't forget that for a short time he even worked for
those "Masters of purposeful explosions" in Seattle.

> > > That World War II was just a shuffling of markets, the killing of so
> > > many people merely a distraction, a sideshow for innocents, providing
> > > vivid material for schoolbooks.
> > >
> >
> > Yes, that's what he says about it.
>
> Do you think that's really what WWII was mainly about.
>
>

Don't you think that every war, including the current, is mainly about that?
This isn't meant to diminish the efforts and sacrifices of the common
American PFC who came to free Europe from fascism, which I'm grateful for.

> >
> > >
> > > > self-reflexive writing
> > > This may be the most po-mo thing he has going for him, even though
> > > self-reflexivity isn't anything that just appeared in po-mo times.
> > >
> >
> > That's correct, "Tristram Shandy" written today would be considered
> > postmodern:
> >
> > "(...) the application of a (...) deconstructive skepticism to
> > themselves especially distinguishes the fictions of Gaddis
> > and Pynchon as postmodern. These reflexive or self-reflecting
> > texts incorporate metacommentary on the processes of literary
> > imagination and composition which shape them, in the
> > manner of Sternes's "Tristram Shandy" or the Spanish picaresque novel."
> > (Robert Jackson, "Intertextualism: The Case of Pynchon and Patrick
> > White," PN 46-49, p. 61)
> >
> > > I'm not saying you're wrong, Otto, but I think you need more
> > > clarification.
> > >

I've never said that postmodernism is the end of the story, but up to now
nobody's been able to prove Derrida and all the others wrong.

> >
> > Oh Paul, I've tried that so often in the last five years. And Rob is
> > much
> > better in this than I am as his essay in the last Pynchon Notes and his
> > numerous posts on this list prove.
>
> Rob's stuff is no doubt worthy but I would like to hear what YOU have to
> say.
> >

Who said what first? Rob's essay is about Intertextualism. How can
I be sure after all these years that the thoughts and ideas I have about
Pynchon, postmodernism etc. are my own?

On the other hand, I'd like to hear from some reasonable person (such as you
or sardonic201) why Pynchon isn't postmodern, and what kind of literature it
is he's given to us. It surely isn't 19th century realism, and in my opinion
it isn't modernism (like Joyce) too.

> > Mr. Derrida said: "It is impossible to respond. I can only do something
> > which will leave me unsatisfied."
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/obituaries/10derrida.html
> >
> > Otto
> >
>