After Tragedy: The Thomas Pynchon Scratchpad

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

'Tristero is a reference to the philosopher's stone, via 
Hermes Trismegistus, and the allegory of that stone, 
capable of turning lead into gold, is the allegory for 
Pynchon of the possibilities of metaphor,  'another 
set of possibilities to replace those that had conditioned 
the land to accept any San Narciso among its most 
tender flesh without a reflex or a cry.'     

I figured that "Tristero" pointed to much older 
magical principles, but the linkage to the 
Philosopher's Stone leads us back to the birth 
of Alchemy. Note Webb's entrance in AtD:

"Couldn't help smellin what you're cookin in here. 
Back over the ridgeline and across the creek, 's 
a matter of fact. It's 'at there nitro, ain't it?"    

That conversation is re-directed (perhaps it's more 
accurate to say that Merle attempts to redirect the 
conversation) to alchemy in the most traditional 
and historical senses. Webb, of course, can't stop 
talking about blowin' shit up and plotwise, the book 
is on its merry way.  But note how quickly Pynchon 
gets old fashioned Alchemy and old fashioned
Anarchism on the same page? And where? And 
who's talking when it happens?

Vineland, of course, links up with COL49 with the 
renascent Mucho Maas (temporarily Count Drugula)
and Jesse Traverse is in both Vineland and AtD.
But it looks like the Philosopher's Stone (and the 
Tristerrian "Anti-Stone) links up COL49 and
AtD in an even bigger way, what with the CoC
book series, replicated in ubiquity in our own
time by J. K. Rowling's Literary Juggernaut;
the first book (in its first incarnation across the
pond) in that series has "Philosopher's Stone" 
in the title. I'd call that a big link.
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Ya Sam" <takoitov at hotmail.com>
> 
> "In this post, I grapple with my own search for a successor to a rather 
> embarrassing interest in Tom Robbins, Jack Kerouac, and Henry 
> Miller—somebody who could complement the problematic works of Hermann Hesse. 
> I am also trying to describe an alternative to the modernist tragedians, 
> including F. Scott Fitzgerald and J. D. Salinger." ...
> 
> Read the whole thing here
> 
> 
http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/after_tragedy_the_thomas_pynchon_scratc
> hpad/#When:09:50:00Z
> 
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