Against the Day/Songs

[Paul Mackin]

On Jul 21, 2006, at 12:08 PM, Chris Broderick wrote:

> Paul sez:
>
> It's important that the Day of Judgement be seen to be
> just about as
> fully applicable to the secular world and to the world
> of belief
> other than fundamentalist Christian.  In all realms it
> is a judgement
> from which there  is no appeal (GR page 1).
>
> So I say:
>
> Important to whom?

Important so we won't start worrying that Pynchon has necessarily  
gone religious on us just because he continues (from GR) to use  
Christian imagery.

> Death (as embodied by the
> screaming across the sky in GR) is the judgement to
> which there is no appeal.  And yes, that screaming
> could be the voice of a God dispensing judgement.  But
> it could also just be a missile.

It is just a missile.  Symbolic not of a vengeful God but of  
Technology, Death, and  Destruction.

>
> The Day of Judgement is something else entirely.  As
> Anthony Burgess sez, "Human beings die, and we all
> die... Only minor literature aims at apocalypse."  Or
> something like that.  If you are an ethical atheist or
> a Buddhist, the Day of Judgement is always already in
> existence.  So if you mean that, then I agree with
> you.  But what I am against (and what I believe the
> title Against the Day may imply) is the idea that
> judgement of human behavior can be deferred to the
> point after we destroy ourselves as a species.  I just
> want to make that distinction.
>
> -Chris
>
> PS - I am not Thomas Pynchon.  My real name is Wanda
> Tinasky, or William Gaddis, or Richard Farina, or J.
> Edgar Hoover.
>
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