M & D and ATD, thematic homage, parallels, etc.

[Paul Mackin]

On Apr 26, 2007, at 3:47 AM, Tore Rye Andersen wrote:

> Daniel Harper:
>
>> In M&D the Native Americans (and America in general) seem to be a  
>> sort of extended metaphor >for purity, for "innocent savagery" or  
>> whatever, but are not really intended to be "real" people.
>
> Well put. While richly portrayed with plenty of realistic details,  
> the America/Vineland the Good of M&D is in many ways a metaphor, or  
> perhaps a dream of innocence and unlimited possibilities - see e.g.  
> one of my favourite passages in the novel:
>
> "Does Britannia, when she sleeps, dream? Is America her dream?-- in  
> which all that cannot pass in the metropolitan Wakefulness is  
> allow'd Expression away in the restless Slumber of these Provinces,  
> and on West-ward, wherever 'tis not yet mapp'd, nor written down,  
> nor ever, by the majority of Mankind, seen,-- serving as a very  
> Rubbish-Tip for subjunctive Hopes, for all that *may yet be  
> true*,-- Earthly Paradise, Fountain of Youth, Realms of Prester  
> John, Christ's Kingdom, ever behind the sunset, safe till the next  
> Territory to the West be seen and recorded, measur'd and tied in,  
> back into the Net-Work of Points already known, that slowly  
> triangulates its Way into the Continent, changing all from  
> subjunctive to declarative, reducing Possibilities to Simplicities  
> that serve the ends of Governments,-- winning away from the realm  
> of the Sacred, its Borderlands one by one, and assuming them unto  
> the bare mortal World that is our home, and our Despair." (M&D, 345)
>
> This is not realistic history so much as myth, with Europe standing  
> in for "the bare mortal World" and America for "the realm of the  
> Sacred." To call it a myth or a metaphor, however, is not in any  
> way equal to detracting from its importance in Pynchon's work. In  
> both V., GR, Vineland, and M&D, Pynchon reserves some of his most  
> beautiful and intense flights of rhetoric to elaborations of just  
> this metaphor, cf. this sunset from GR:
>
> ""Holy shit." This is the kind of sunset you hardly see any more, a  
> 19th-century wilderness sunset, a few of which got set down,  
> approximated, on canvas, landscapes of the American West by artists  
> nobody ever heard of, when the land was still free and the eye  
> innocent, and the presence of the Creator much more direct. Here it  
> thunders now over the Mediterranean, high and lonely, this  
> anachronism in primal red, in yellow purer than can be found  
> anywhere today, a purity begging to be polluted... of course Empire  
> took its way westward, what other way was there but into those  
> virgin sunsets to penetrate and to foul?" (GR, 214)
>
> Again, this is not history, it's myth and hyperbole (who would  
> seriously believe that Pynchon considers the colours of previous  
> centuries somehow purer than our poor, bleak 20th Century colours?)
>
> Despite having published an early story in the journal "The Noble  
> Savage", I don't think Pynchon seriously believes in that  
> particular construction. I do think, however, that the colonizing  
> instinct is probably the single greatest villain in Pynchon's  
> novels and has been along - from Mondaugen's Story in V., up to and  
> including most of AtD. And just as Pynchon does not portray any  
> redeeming features in his cartoon villains Blicero and Scarsdale  
> Vibe, so he's not interested in nuancing his depiction of the evils  
> of colonialism by introducing realistic, un-mythical, musings over  
> the possible imperialistic behaviour of those noble savages. Such a  
> historical revisionism (or is it actually a revisionism in  
> reverse?) would weaken this particular mythical edifice, and it  
> would open up for possible excuses that Pynchon in this particular  
> instance won't allow us.

Glad this discussion is taking place.

Is anything really at stake then (besides fine writing)  in these  
unrealistic, mythical, un-nuanced depictions of imperialism,  
colonialism, capitalism, anarchism, innocence, edens, paradises,  etc.?

Fending off possible excuses can't be what Pynchon labors mightily for..

More likely  those portentous-sounding passages like "Does Britannia,  
when she sleeps, . . ."  serve mainly to make our nerve endings  
tingle, which they make mine do exceedingly well..  The more such  
passages the better as far as I'm concerned. And don't tell me I'm  
trivializing Pynchon's art. I'm  recognizing it for what it is.


>
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