GR | Spoiler | Bilicero @ The Heath...

[Bryan Snyder]

true - what is the importance of the windmills?

Also - someone said that the Counterfource is a reflection of THEM??  and I
was always under the impression (admittedly guided by various essays and 2
books (Pynchon's Mythography by Katherine Hume and Mindless Pleasures - an
essay book about TP in general containing three essays dedicated to GR) that
the Counterforce was created by the few "paranoids" that finally realize
they've been.... screw this... I'm going to quote Hum at length here because
i think she NAILS IT, among other GR questions - her book is a fantastic
insightful read, I recommend it to everyone on this list.

So here... all quotes from Kathryn Hume's Pynchon's Mythography:

all she says is that the counterforce is a group that has recognized their
own preterition and that they are NOT part of the Them system....

in detail - in amazingly well written and clear detail, I think...

pg 60:
"Slothrop's acceptance of his preterition and even his sparagmos opens him
up to a wider spectrum of experience than most mortals can perceive.  Roger,
upon recognizing his own perterite status, decides to become part of the
counterforce.  He cannot expect victory (it would make him elect) but he can
enjoy the process of resistance.  As Roger throws himself into his gestures,
he gains insights and becomes sensitive to phenomena beyond the empirical,
as we see with his dealings with Rozsavolgyi and his vision at the banquet."

pg 81:
"Two elements matter: the habit of measuring the universe not just in terms
of one's self; and the interconnectedness of everything.  As Pynchon notes
anent the paranoia induced by Oneirine, "Like other sorts of paranoia, it is
nothing less than the onset, the leading edge, of the discovery that
everything is connected, everything in the Creation" (pg. 703 of GR).
Paranoia as a self-centered mode of interpreting phenomena marks Pynchon's
characters and is appropriate to the demonic twists in his mythology.  At
best, as "creative paranoia," it consists of the myths we create and project
on the reality in order to handle it.  The We-force Roger joins, set up to
oppose Them, is an example of such creative paranoia.  It is a reasonable
tactic so long as one remembers the artificial nature of the projection.
The paranoia of most character, however, is neither adequate nor desirable,
for they have forgotten the artifice and believe in their own projections."

pg  126-127:
"Only by accepting the unattractive or repressed option can one reach a
vantage point not torn by the tensions of the dichotomy.  In the opposition
between elect and preterite, for instance, improvement is reached by
accepting one's preterite state.  Roger, Leni, Slothrop, Pirate, Katje and
Polker all more or less come to terms with their own perterition, and in
doing so, shed most of their fear and anxiety and win a kind of freedom.
Slothrop reaches openness with the Other Side, the closest mode of life to
pure freedom, and - to judge from his way of living - largely escapes the
tensions of living for the morrow.  His bandwidth narrows to the here and
now.  Pirate and Katje can live with their decisions and accept what they
are.  Roger can throw himself into Counterforce gestures, something only
possible when he accepts that he is a loser in the power-struggle."

pg 179 -180:
"Insight into the non-material nature of reality is one common element [in
Pynchon's mythology].  Slothrop, Enzian, Roger, Leni, Pirate, Tchitcherine,
Pokler and Katje all at some time see superimposed planes of reality; they
all recognize the existence of a Them-reality, and sometimes other realities
as well.  Most of them act on this discovery.  Once Slothrop becomes aware
of Them-activity, he eludes surveillance and goes AWOL.  Roger joins the
counterforce.  Katje and Pirate strive to secede from the System, and see
the importance of trying to be kind."

There's a lot about Slothrop-cum-Hero, as all mythologies need a Hero, but
that's a different discussion.

On 3/2/07, Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I always figured it was Pynchon's way of showing us
> > that Blicero's quest for transcendence by rocket was
> > a quixotic one.
>
> That may go some ways towards answering the next
> question, i.e., why ultimately all the windmills ...
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Yahoo! Music Unlimited
> Access over 1 million songs.
> http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20070302/afefe50c/attachment.html>