'Them' and Pynchon

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

There's three Americans [ok, one's Canadian, as if it makes any difference] who 
oddly seem connected, artists all, top of the game. Orson Welles—the monster 
from 'Heavenly Creatures'—always was using make-up so deep, it might as well be 
a mask, false noses, facial hair, constantly trying to be in public eye yet 
invisible at the same time. Glenn Gould, cooped away in a messy apartment in 
Toronto, heat all the way up and three jackets on, manically editing 14 
interviews with 14 different interviewees into a full-on fugue state, with both 
pitches and ideologies conterpoised [1]. And then there's Tommy Boy over 
there in the corner, with his cloak of invisibility, perhaps the reigning master 
of paranoia. All three figures are, in their respective ways, artists of 
paranoia.

Built into the design of Pynchon's books, we always find some poor schlemeil 
experiencing troubles on account of the intervention of some member of the 
Elect [2]. This goes all the way up and down the spectra of the elect, from Major 
Marvy to Rilkean Angels [3]. Pierce Inverarity is one of the fiscal 
'Illumanati'; he sends Oed off on a wild goose chase from beyond the grave.  
Mason & Dixon have their fates tossed about by 'the Royal Society'. That plate 
glass window that Zoyd just crashed through is made of clear candy which 
suggests that some Hollywood big-wig must be involved, and somebody, way 
the hell up the copro-military's ass, is after Slothrop's balls. The Vibes got 
their fingers in so many of the various tarts, pies and prussian pastries 
on display in Against the Day, there's probably a "Vibe" family diet for 
diabetics. 

Wonder what they'd call it. . . .

While we are given portaits of the monsters of Capital that reigned in the 
Gilded Age[s], the marginal humanity Pynchon affords the Vibes gives 
Against the Day a much more complex 'them' than we've seen in TRP's 
other books. 

But this is a question I'd like to toss out to you all [hopefully getting a few 
responses]; who [or what] is "Them" in Pynchon's fictions? Are we talking 
about military industrial complexs, psychological complexes, 
shopping complexes. . . .

. . . .are the advances of "Industrial anything", like some Golem, 
blindly destroying us? And who is that man behind the curtain anyway?

1. In his radio documentary "The Quiet in the Land", concerning a community of 
Mennonites, Glenn Gould fashioned fugal textures out of documentary materials, 
a re-edit job not at all unlike Orson Welles' work in "F for Fake".

2. Here we have Jesus Arrabal's description of an "Anarchist Miracle."

 "You know what a miracle is. Not what Bakunin said. But another world's 
intrusion into this one. Most of the time we coexist peacefully, but when we 
do touch there's cataclysm. Like he church we hate, anarchists also believe 
in another world. Where revolutions break out spontaneous and leaderless, 
and the soul's talent for consensus allows the masses to work together without 
effort, automatic as the body itself. And yet, sena, if any of it should ever 
really happen that perfectly, I would also have to cry miracle. An anarchist 
miracle. Like your friend. He is too exactly and without flaw the thing we 
fight. In Mexico, the privilegiado is always, to a finite percentage, redeemed
—one of the people. Unmiraculous. But your friend, unless he's joking, is as 
terrifying to me as a Virgin appearing to an Indian." 
CoL49, 97

3. Think about how many elder gods, old Norse deities or Orisha, have their say,
their actions, their will fulfilled in AtD.