ATDDTA (8) Towers and Zeros (219-221)

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, Keith, this is real good it seems to me......and one of my readings of a meaning of Lew's blast is that he is now on the other side of dynamite as a solution....?????
   
  All of that "certainty" that even Webb had in his 'muscular" belief in his solution, what I
  once called 'secular fundamentalism"----not knowing there was already a different sociological use---is Pynchon's 'moral' perspective on the Traverses, starting with Webb
  and the subsequent sins of the father played out in the sons.
   
  ??????

Keith <keithsz at mac.com> wrote:
  So far in our Section (8), the references to towers and pillars are 
plenteous. They're showing up again in the T.W.I.T. sanctuary 
(220:35-36). The Tarot's Tower Card is highlighted in Section (9). 
Amidst these tower references, as well as many here noted references 
to Bush, et al. in the Jeshimon section, the following quote is 
evocative of our more recent Ground Zero...

"seekers of certitude, of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply 
as the century had rushed to its end and through some unthinkable 
zero and on out the other side" (219:24-26)

...as is Lew's arroyo piss blast back on 184-5...

"into that radiant throatway leading to who knew what, in the faith 
that there would be something there, and not just Zero and 
blackness" (185:5-6)

...which is conceptualized by Nicholas Nookshaft as an unintended 
gift presented to Lew by his assailants, who are defined as Shamans, 
and that the blast opened a portal between lateral Worlds for the 
unsuspecting Lew, who, vis a vis the TWITs, leans more towards his 
ignorance black as night than to his state of enlightened grace. 
Regardless, the Grand Cohen suspects that Lew himself, in light of 
this perceived initiatory experience, is something of a shaman as 
well. (221:2-30)

http://www.shamanlinks.net/Journey.htm

Lew's thoughts about the knowledge of Good and Evil at the beginning 
of the chapter are typical of that naive pioneer spirit, thinking it 
knows all about evil because of the rugged life, yet in actuality 
being the infantile beginnings of what remained (and so far under W, 
remains) an arrogant adolescent country until 9/11, and which now can 
decide to enter a New World Order at its own peril or join a more 
inclusive global consciousness. The stuff of Magick and the Occult in 
Pynchon's novels is less about an adoption of those 
conceptualizations, and more about showing the common invisible 
archetypal structure shared across disciplines from philosophy to 
science to religion and mysticism.

The blast that almost took Lew, the blasts of prophet Reef, are being 
framed (at least from some perspectives in the novel) as prophetic 
gifts, as initiatory events, offering an opportunity for deeper 
awareness. 


       
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