Pynchon reference for today

[Paul Mackin]

On Mar 11, 2006, at 3:27 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:

> On 3/9/06, Elainemmbell at aol.com <Elainemmbell at aol.com> wrote:
>> Word of the Day for Thursday March 9, 2006
>> contradistinction \kon-truh-dis-TINK-shuhn\, noun:
>> Distinction by contrast; as, "sculpture in contradistinction to  
>> painting."
>>
>> In the quarter-century since "Gravity's  Rainbow," American
>>  novelists  have  increasingly fixed their boldest inventions in  
>> the past,
>> usually their own early years or a time  long before they were  
>> born -- in
>> contradistinction to postwar writers who vigorously peeled away  
>> World War II
>> and the social fabric of the 1950's.
>> --Gary Giddins, "Escape to New York," New York Times, September  
>> 20, 1998
>>
>>
>
> Although half of V is in the 50s, and certainly CoL49 is set about the
> time of its writing, (and that other novel of his that I'd like to
> write a thesis on in order to extol its gemlike perfection isn't set
> so very long ago) there's a truth lurking there but whether it speaks
> to Pynchon's concept of bicameral mind -

Am reminded of the bicameralism the Counterforce runs up  against on  
p 712 of GR:

"Well, if the Counterforce knew better what those categories  
concealed, they might be in a better position to disarm, de-penis and  
dismantle the Man. But they don't. Actually they do, but they don't  
admit it. Sad but true. They are as schizoid, as double-minded in the  
massive presence of money, as any of the rest of us, and that's the  
hard fact. The Man has a branch office in each of our brains, his  
corporate emblem is a white albatross, each local rep has a cover  
known as the Ego, and their mission in this world is Bad Shit. "


>
> http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_quotes.html
>> Right and left; the hothouse and the street. The Right can only live
> and work >hermetically, in the hothouse of the past, while outside the
> Left prosecute their >affairs in the streets manipulated by mob
> violence. And cannot live but in the >dreamscape of the future.  --V.
>
> - or to other tendencies (current events becoming more the subject of
> TV, movies, periodicals and blogs than of novels? editors' choices?
> the consolidation of ownership in the publishing industry? sales
> numbers? or just the fascination inherent in history? perhps a seemly
> humility in not wanting to rush to judgement on current events?) I
> wouldn't venture to opine
>
>
> --
> "Acceptance, forgiveness, love - now that's a philosophy of life!"
> -Woody Allen, as Broadway Danny Rose
>