: Re: ATDTDA (14) p 398: General Spoilers re the Chums' ending in ATD

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

         Mark Kohut 
         this p-list had a discussion not long ago on whether TRP 
         'believes" in angels.....
         Reflecting on Mike's recent post and the whole presentation 
         of the Chums, I think TRP has now answered that definitely 
         with AtD..........see above post and the answer is
     
         NO....they are fiction, he says (in AtD's character ontology).

This reminds me of a line someone told me came from Crowley:
"In this ritual action it does not matter whether or not you believe in Venus,
you are to invoke her at this particular moment in the ritual in order for
the action to have the intended result." It hardly matters whether or not Our
Beloved Author "believes" in angels, ghosts, "monsters from the id" or other
spiritual beasties that go bump and run in the night. He invokes one or the
other every five pages or so in every one of his books. Who/what is V. anyway? 
Pierce Inverarity arranges the days of Oedipa' Maas from beyond the grave, 
Brigidier Pudding's verbally vile ghost is responsible for my favorite passage in 
Gravity's Rainbow, the [mostly sad and confused] ghost of Weed Atman makes 
his presence felt in Vineland, the ghost/angel of Rebekah produces my favorite 
scene in Mason & Dixon, the Traverse siblings regularly recieve missives from 
pater familias Webb, now deceased. It's in the very fabric of his writing. The
"exact degree of fictitiousness" of these spiritual entities varies according to 
the local fictional context, the intended end use of these ineffable creatures. 
We might find out that the ascended master Blavatsky was seeking turns out 
to be Elmer Fudd. Or that Rilke's angels have a special place in their hearts 
for the V-2.

         mikebailey
         In Vineland, there's speculation about
         angels in a way, a being one letter of whose
         name would involve 8 human lives (and deaths)    
  
         There's an essay in Pynchon Notes about Pynchon's
         angels, Rilke's angels, and the angels of everyday
         commerce (greeting cards & so forth) which
         takes the question up as well, suggesting that
         elements of dread attach to Pynchon's and Rilke's
         angels which are foreign to the Hallmark variety.

         From AtD, we get right at the outset that
         if there are Angels, the Chums aren't any conventional
         kind of them.  The Catholic populace in Chicago
         is imputed to perceive differences in these airfarers.

Right. . . . 

         Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?

         and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
         I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
         For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are 
         still just able to endure,
         and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
         Every angel is terrifying. . . .

. . . .that Angel of terror, of real power, pops up [in its way] on page 779.
That light of the great awakening---the true apocalypse---also means 
annihilation.