re VLVL Pynchon's eye for detail

[Otto]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Monroe" <monropolitan at yahoo.com>
To: "Otto" <ottosell at yahoo.de>; "Pynchon Liste" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: re VLVL Pynchon's eye for detail


> Hear, hear ...
>
> --- Otto <ottosell at yahoo.de> wrote:
> >
> > I disagree that there is only "little, if any real
> > discussion of the works themselves here" as long as
> > every other opinion as the one expressed by the
> > alphas on this list is immediately ridiculed.  Not
> > everybody has the nerve to take this for years.
>
> There are tims I think I stick with simply so as not
> to have knuckled under.  Not so much DEspite, or even
> IN spite of, certain tendencies here, as TO spite
> them.  Ultimately, Nothing discourages participation
> here more than, well, constant discouragement ...
>
> > The unwillingness to discuss has been sufficiently
> > expressed in the discussion of the "1984"-foreword
> > where obvious references to actual US-politics
> > simply were declared as non-existing.
>
> You really oughtta read Robert's paper in the recent
> Pynchon Notes, Otto, he displays a far greaters
> receptivity towards similitudes there.  AND he's
> neither condenscending nor outright insulting.  No,
> really, worth reading, gotta look up Patrick White ...
>

PN 46-49 is still with me in my cab.

I did read that essay and was quite impressed of what he had to say about
intertextualism, interpretation and postmodernism in general and
specifically about Pynchon and Gaddis. I wish David would read it.

But I haven't read anything of Patrick White yet so I cannot say anything
about his claim that there's some kind of intertextual connection between
the two authors. But if he says so I tend to believe he's right.

But my "But thank god all this is only interpretation. Five years on this
list have turned me into a Nietzschean" which precedes what you have quoted
from my last post does not refer to that essay where Rob says (and he's
right in this):

   "(...) postmodern fictions and postmodernist critiques alike
    illustrate and amplify the oft cited Nietzschean dictum that
    'there are no facts, only interpretations.'" (p. 62)

In fact I've been lucky to get the "Rowohlt Literatur Magazine No. 12" on
Nietzsche in a second-hand bookstore for 1,80 Euro last week:

"Der totale Perspektivismus, den Nietzsche immer wieder gegen jeden
absoluten Wahrheitsbegriff ins Feld führt, ist die historisch zu placierende
<<Verallgemeinerung ästhetische Grunderfahrung>>. Tatsächlich *ist* der
Mensch für Nietzsche nur, wenn er interpretiert.
(...)
Die Geschichte des Subjekts erscheint nun als eine einzige abendländische
Identitätsduselei, wenigstens als ideologischer Ballast aus einer endgültig
abgeschlossenen Menschheits-Biographie. Alle allgemeinverbindlichen
Einsichts- und Verhaltens-Suppositionen waren demnach nur der Versuch von
Menschen gewesen, sich am eigenen Schopf aus dem Sumpf zu ziehen, das Choas
der Geschichte zu überstehen. Darüber hinaus sind sie ohne Wert: <<Es gibt
vielerlei Augen. Auch die Sphinx hat Augen -: und folglich gibt es vielerlei
<Wahrheiten>, und folglich gibt es keine Wahrheit.>> Und: << <Wahrheit> ist
der Wille, Herr zu werden über das Vielerlei der Sensationen.>> Und: <<Die
Mächtigen sind es, welche die Namen der Dinge zum Gesetz gemacht haben . .
.>> Drei Zitate aus Nietzsches <Der Wille zur Macht>. (pp. 12-13)

--Jürgen Manthey: "Nietzsche und die Wiederkehr der Ungleichheit. Eine
Einleitung," in: Rowohlt Literatur Magazine No. 12, Redaktion: Nicolas Born,
Jürgen Manthey, Delf Schmidt. Reinbek, Mai 1980, pp. 11-23.

Otto