authors under the influence

[Paul Mackin]

On Oct 22, 2006, at 8:38 PM, robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:

> I was also thinking that was your general direction, which made me  
> wonder when we reached that particular delta-t where what "might be  
> a fairly decent example of what would likely have been seen in an  
> earlier age (Proust's) as dangerous to the social fabric in the way  
> it undermined both male and ruling class authority" became hot copy  
> on the fiction shelves from coast to coast and common parlance in a  
> disturbingly wide variety of social situations?


Oh yes i seem to remember it was considered pretty filthy stuff,   
though certainly by 1973 Sex was no longer thought of as a dangerous  
class leveler, as it had been seen to be in Proust's era.

That change might well be considered an important historical marker.  
We'll just have to wait and see if the transition is something  
Pynchon takes up in the new book.

This thread and the way it's metamorphosed into a discussion of  
Proust may in the end turn out to be P rather than NP.

> I mean, the sexually scandalous accounts for several sub-genres in  
> fiction and periodicals these days and tends to fill fill up the  
> after-dinner slot on broadcast TV.

Very true and very noticeable.

> Gravity's Rainbow was (and rightly should have been) regarded as  
> sexually scandalous in its day.  But I'm thinking of what fills up  
> the shelves of the bookstore where I work (less than a month till  
> ATD shows up, we're getting 25 copies, I'm snagging a copy as soon  
> as it arrives, most likely a week or two before street date unless  
> TRP has hooked up with the mob), I kn!
>  ow that
>  many of the things we now stock were at one time illegal.

In my own youth we still had only an expurgated version of Lady  
Chatterly. In America the class aspects could be left intact; only  
the explicit  sex was removed. (not saying we don't have different  
classes in America--it's just that our upper classes are not expected  
to set a good example)

> By the way—we shelve the sex books in the psychology section  
> between "Recovery" and "Self Help" (I think it's the chain's best  
> joke).  But as you note, at one time this sort of thing really was  
> a scandal. At what time (Proust's perhaps, but surely not very long  
> after?) were these sorts of things not part of common parlance?
>
> "The sex was  evil in itself. "

This overhang from Judea-Christianity was still the rule in Proust's  
secular France and is STILL well represented in many populations of  
the world.

>
>
> That applies in particular to the scenes involving General Pudding  
> and Katje, Pynchon's interweaving of occult elements underlining  
> the sheer nastiness of the scene, like a note from an organ pedal  
> playing in a minor mode.

It was inspired genius.
>
> I don't know if you've seen "Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn  
> Gould", but there's this great scene consisting of Colm Feore (the  
> actor who portrays Glenn Gould in the film—he doesn't look all that  
> much like G.G. but he sounds just like him) reading Glenn Gould's  
> day by day entries from his diary consisting of drug dosages, hours  
> of dosing, described symptoms, drug dosage calculation adjustment,  
> symptom mutation, etc. As the voice-over methodically drones on,  
> the collections of drugs being described are displayed in photos of  
> the bottles of pills collected together and shot from a variety of  
> dramatic angles, like legal documentation from some drug bust.  
> Inspiring, really.

I don't know it but it does sound interesting. Proust and Gould had a  
lot in common.
>
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net>
>>
>> On Oct 21, 2006, at 7:44 PM, robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
>>> From: Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net
>>>
>>> "My speculation would be that, though the attraction of drugs and
>>> even more so booze as an aid to the creative process is
>>> considerable, an ambitious novelist is only going to turn to really
>>> HEAVY use as a last resort. Proust needed dangerous substances just
>>> to keep going physically and mentally. He knew he was poisoning
>>> himself and shortening his life. It was a calculated trade off. .
>>> Incidentally he thought of himself as a pretty competent
>>> toxicologist."
>>>
>>> That pretty much applies to Glenn Gould as well. Throw in Gould's
>>> self-imposed social isolation and it looks like were talking about
>>> soul brothers.
>>>
>>> "To make the point here's a connection to  Pynchon. If a general of
>>> the British Empire were to be sexually defiled by a little Dutch
>>> girl in the early 1920's Pynchon would never have been able to eat
>>> lunch in New York again.,"
>>>
>>> Sorry, you've lost me there. I suppose I might be a little dim as
>>> of this moment, but could you please provide me a little more  
>>> context?
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> OK.  As Mike Bailey guessed, I was half seriously suggesting that
>> the phantasmagoric encounter between General Pudding and Katje might
>> be a fairly decent example of what would likely have been seen in an
>> earlier age (Proust's) as dangerous to the social fabric in the way
>> it undermined both male and ruling class authority.
>>
>> In that society extra-marital relations between men and women of the
>> same class was an affront to male authority only if the women
>> happened to have a  husband. However the crossing of class lines
>> could add a  further complication, though not necessarily. A rich man
>> could take a shop girl  for his mistress and no one would bat  an
>> eye.  But when  Lady Chaterly has an affair with the gamekeeper there
>> is both class leveling and the undermining of male authority, namely
>> her husband's. When homosexuality was involved (and homosexuality in
>> all its aspects was a central Proust theme) the concern was
>> compounded. The sex was  evil in itself. And it seemed also that when
>> classes crossed in same-sex relationships the likelihood of leveling
>> was much greater than with opposite-sex relationships.  Proust's
>> novel contains some fairly extreme examples of this latter.
>>
>> Anyway the whole point of bringing all of this up was Proust's heavy
>> use of life-threatening  substances in  order to maintain both
>> physical and mental survival. To put it  simply he worried constantly
>> and disablingly about being found out.  Though part of  him was
>> social critic who wanted to explore and expose to the full the  true
>> nature 19th century society (that's the long  19th again),  another
>> part was that of a  social snob who cared a great deal  about what
>> the right people thought of him. He was in a double bind. He wanted
>> to write honestly about what he knew. Trouble was, how could a man
>> write  so authoritatively and convincingly about these things unless
>> he himself were part of them,  which of course he was.
>>
>
>