Spiritualism v. Secularism

[Paul Mackin]

On Jul 22, 2006, at 11:51 AM, Chris Broderick wrote:

>>> But it's not merely Christian, or
>>> for that matter, monotheist, or even specifically
>>> religious.
>
>> Definitely none of the above.


Not sure now why I said "definitely none of the above" but I'm pretty  
sure I thought I was in essential agreement with you.

The passages you quote are beautiful and clearly show sympathy and  
understanding for Christianity.  Arguments have raged here in the  
past over whether certain passages of the book are actually hostile  
to religious belief.  Certainly, Pynchon welcomes an ironic attitude  
toward belief,  seems to delight in religious doubt, as in the  
passage that asks whether the baby Jesus is smiling is whether it  is  
only gas.

I for one would never dispute  that the opposition between faith and  
doubt is not  important in Gravity's Rainbow.

In fact, I like to think that the book's attitude to this tension (if  
books have attitudes) is similar to my own.
Not a believer myself but convinced that having religious belief is  
not a totally undesirably state to be in.







>
> Well, I'm not willing to dismiss any of those things
> whole cloth just yet.  What about the last (or is it?)
> appearance of Slothrop? "And now, in the Zone, later
> in the day he became a crossroad."  That seems like
> pretty blatant Christian symbolism to me.  Though true
> to form, it's a symbol that also admits its opposite,
> since crossroads are where one goes to meet and
> bargain with the devil, at least according to Robert
> Johnson.  And to be fair, he follows this with a
> passage about a "rainbow cock" that is about as pagan
> as one can imagine.
>
> But what are we to make of this?
>
> "6:43:16 BDST - in the sky right now here is the same
> unfolding, just about to break through, his face
> deepening with its light, everything about to rush
> away and he to lose himself, just as the countryside
> has ever proclaimed... slender church steeples poised
> up and down all these autumn hillsides, white rockets
> about to fire, only seconds of countdown away, rose
> windows taking in Sunday light, elevating and washing
> the faces above the pulpits defining grace, swearing
> this is how it does happen- yes the great bright hand
> reaching out of the cloud..."
>
> (I'd give you page numbers, but I don't have a copy of
> the Penguin edition.)
>
> Now let me finish with the caveat that I'm not saying
> that GR is some kind of (shudder) religious allegory,
> or Slothrop some sort of Christ figure (though I do
> enjoy the irony that such a figure could spend a good
> chunk of the novel chasing skirts and hashish.)  Just
> that Pynchon seems to focus a lot of attention on
> these kinds of oppositions: Christianity v. Paganism,
> Religion v. Science, phallus v. rocket.  And though
> his characters may stand on one side or another, I'd
> submit that the narrator stays right in the middle.
> In the v period, as it were.
>
> -Chris
>
>
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