Against The Day

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Keith:
          Shit. I'm at p. 423 in this crazy novel, and I 
          just don't agree with the naysayers. Now that 
          I've gotten past a brief stall while I hosted a 
          section, I can't put the goddamned thing down. 
          For me, reading it is sheer delight. Gravity's 
          Rainbow is always there for many re-readings, 
          and I'm quite satisfied with this new bit of 
          Pynchon material.

I seem to be sitting in a longer stall. It's not that I've lost affection for 
OBA's latest doorstop, but the thread I was left hanging on continues 
to divert, deflect and re-direct. There's about 20 books I've picked up 
since getting a touch monomanicial with these postings a few back. 
There's Blavatsky's "Voice of the Silence", a copy of "The Princess 
Casamassima", "Murdered By Capitalism" by John Ross (invaluable), 
"Myths of the Norsemen", "Q is for Quantum", "Tuva or Bust"---just
too much stuff to read!!! And no, haven't read all these books I've 
picked up in hope of understanding "Against the Day". So where do I 
turn? What should I be focusing on, right now?

First off: Illumination and all that implies. You've got Holy Rollers,
Progressive/Activist/Leftward Leaning/Pro-Dynamite Preachers,
Buddhists, Theosophists, G. D.'ers and other T.W.I.T.s blinded by 
the light. You've got all that light over the ranges and consequently 
that "Ray Rush" in progress all around. And the capture and 
dissemination of these rays as well, in Radio Telegraphy, 
Photography and other transmutations of light in motion to light
in a somewhat more fixed state. Like that so-called "Age of 
Enlightment" discussed in the throughly Endarkened "Mason &
Dixon", we are moving through a massive Paradigm shift in AtD,
where the models for describing the Universe are going through
a through overhaul.

There's also a considerable number of magickal workings in 
progress and (as we find so often in Pynchon) working at cross-
purposes (with all that "cross-purposes" implies). We find ourselves 
cheering for these family-friendly characters who seek the light---
a light that will, eventually, engulf and annihilate them.

And then there's Nicky Nookshaft, the kiddie's pal. If you've read enough 
of OBA, the magical words and concepts pop out on account of being 
omnipresent. Even in that little afterthought, that Rossinian fragment of a 
Scherzo entitled "Vineland", the author graces the text with finely detailed 
descriptions of spiritual rituals and states of mind that your classic Chick
Publications Pamphlet would generally describe as "demonic". The notion
that John Buchan + Ritual Magic = Crowley passed through my mind around 
my third pass through GR, but of course OBA was reluctant to utter the name 
of this most Voldemortian of historical figures, keeping those sorts of links 
plausibly deniable while still circumstantially evident. 

By the time I got to Chunxton Crescent, certain aspects of Pynchon's writing
clarified. A Grey Eminence among Pynchon scholars directed me back to 
some really early Pynchon:

          Remarkable for juvenilia, Pynchon’s high school fiction 
          features many of the stylistic flourishes and literary 
          themes he employs to this day: surreally silly names, 
          paranoia, copious drug use, and an oddball sense of 
          humor. These stories were published under 
          pseuodnyms, such as “Roscoe Stein,” “Bose,” or no 
          name at all.

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_hamster.html

I would include in that list a precocious interest in altered states of 
consciousness, said states being altered by whatever means are 
available. And it seems that more stuff that can get you downright 
wacky is available in AtD than in any of OBA's other books. There's
some kind of massive thesis waiting out there for someone willing
to track down and tie up all of Our Beloved Author's thoughts on
Psychotropic Drugs (and all that implies), and the magical rituals
associated with the states of mind that Psychotropic Drugs are 
supposed to induce. 

Meanwhile, there's all these links of Vibes and Walkers to Bushes
and Walkers, thousands of threads to tie up concerning the massive
accumulations of capital in the First Gilded Age and the massive
accumulations of capital in this Second Gilded Age and how all that
capital turned into the Military Industrial/Centralized Intelligence 
Complex we now all know and loath.

And that's pretty much where I'm beached right now, letting all this 
data settle out, picking up my guitar and working on scales in D, 
de-focusing on AtD, following along with the group read---and Thanks
and Kudos to Paul Nightingale, Keith and Mark Kohut and all the others
for holding up their collective ends and aiding and abbeting the general 
atmosphere of genial anarchy that the List now serves up on a daily basis. 
I'm not about to stop, but I have slowed down. Right now, I've been giving 
my brain, eyes, fingers and the P-List a little break. 

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