Snappycrossdresser

[Paul Mackin]

I better cut the colloquy short and concentrate on just one instance of
what I see as needed improvements in Otto's thinking. No offense
intended because I also see Otto as a fine fellow whom it is fun to talk
to. However there are other more interesting discussions going on at the
moment.

>  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."
> 

What kind of work would deconstructing the supernatural be for a
postmodernest? That was something the Enlightenment did and without the
help of post-structuralism. If P is the kind of postmodernist he is
often assumed to be wouldn't he be on the side of at least mildly trying
to counteract the rationalism of modernism by introducing some modicum
of enchantment back into the world?

For me Gravity's Rainbow is just about pure enchantment though I'm not
really sure why. It's more than the angels.

My motivation in starting and carrying on this discussion was to try and
get someone to say something fresh about Pynchon. I admit that I can't
say anything.  Didn't want us to go back to list making.