TRP and Godzilla, misc.

Tue Apr 8 07:10:08 CDT 2008

Ian,

  I found this from someone who started reading AtD online and thought he knew precisely the images on the cover.......(have not fact-checked this in any way).......
  It reminded me of your observations that TRP is inevitably a Westerner......perhaps our so-clever beloved author is letting us know he knows he is 
  always a Westerner?:

  "I started Against the Day yesterday and immediately was struck by the red mandala image on the cover. Unless Im mistaken, that is Mt. Meru and a snow lion. I want to say this is used to indicate the western realm in the Tibetan Buddhist cosmology. I cant make our the inscription around the stamp. Can anyone confirm, shoot down, or further speculate on the stamp?"

  Stamp is Tibetan Chamber of Commerce we know.....not in existence until 2005................

Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at yahoo.ca> wrote:
          Yes,

as I say, I do not think he disdains the East, but that he rather understands that we can only observe it from without -- a "risky" venture.  Richard cites a telling moment from Vineland in which Takeshi draws the parallel between the  Tibetan Book of the Dead and popular television culture.  We look at the Book of the Dead, we do not see from within it.  The locus of the perspective is one of observing exteriors rather than interiors, as is the case with Oedipa observing the conundrum how we experience metaphor (where we ironically sense Oedipa's perspective) and the whole "time shuffling thing" you mention elsewhere.  

(That element of movement through time outside the rational trajectory was one of the things that made me think of Taoist alchemy.  Some perfected masters of certain schools from that tradition were reputed to access doorways through time such that they were able to know the future.  Of course it is possible that P. would have found some  allusions to that in Jung -- I have not, but that doesn't mean they aren't there -- and even more likely that he would abet his playful way with European alchemy by including some such factors.) 

Again, metaphors certainly cross cultural boundaries.  It is the question of perspectives that fascinates me most in all this.  P. freely moves through hundreds of perspectives -- well, his mastery makes it seem like free movement -- but he holds to subjective reflections that it seems to me are typically (if not always) clearly Western perspectives.  It is these perspectives that I think show us the real action in the work.  The smoke and mirrors stuff often makes it difficult to follow where those perspectives are, but I think there is something happening there.  The really felt resonances seem to come through after we have seen something from several points of view, as in V.  There are metaphors compounded over the course of hundreds of pages in AtD that I eagerly look forward to tracing more exactly, if that is possible.

Best,
i

  ----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at yahoo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, April 6, 2008 8:21:36 AM
Subject: Re: TRP and Godzilla, misc.

  Ian,

  another Pynchon text memory knocked loose by your reflections....just for you (since the whole p-list is into other stuff at the moemnt).............

  Somewhere in C of L49, Oedipa asks about metaphor-----"safe, from the inside", or risky
  "from outside".........

  P has been thinking of how to understand other cultures' ideas for awhile, I suggest.......

  Mark

Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at yahoo.ca> wrote:
      Thank you, Mark.

Yes, I can see this is a wonderful tool for unraveling some of the felt resonances in the work.  I shall try to make the time whenever possible to keep up and to keep asking.

Part of what steers me to think Pynchon leaves the depths of Eastern thought at rest is, in fact, that he alludes to Eastern ideas in those wonderfully obscure tropes and images as activities on the fringe.  This is not a negative observation, I think, but a very affirmative one.  It has become de rigeur to show off what masters we are at grasping Eastern ideas.  The truth is that we don't.  As a caretaker at a Buddhist facility, I often get to watch westerners enter a profound mystical tradition with the casual assurance that they already have it all figured out.  I have studied some myself and know I have no idea what is at the subjective heart of the Tibetan mystics' experience.  The point I am making here is that Mr. Pynchon seems to have the same respect for and willingness to plumb the world through Western means.  Only he is very, very good at it.

At first it seemed to me that the alchemical tropes and allusions in V. and especially in AtD were Taoist in flavor, but on closer reflection and investigation, I see that they are in fact representative of European alchemy with his typically Jungian skew.  The Chinese alchemists had no specific reference to the element of air and the Chums are clearly air elementals, among their many attributes.  

On the other hand, mysticism is mysticism and there are elements of Western symbolism and metaphor that resonate with us just as Eastern metaphors resonate with Easterners, I think. In the final analysis we are all human and languages seem to share many points of common derivation, so metaphors do cross cultural lines.  But we Westerners manage and respond to metaphors from our own heritage more readily than we do to those of Eastern derivation.  Our beloved P. manages to use knowledge of that with stunning grace.

I hope it did not seem I would suggest Mr. Pynchon would disdain the East.  My point is simply that he seems to hold it respectfully and compassionately outside his primary perspectival locus.   Is there something I am missing in my reading?   Or am I guilty of my least favorite crime of reading myself into the text?  I am always grateful to be corrected when I'm off the mark.  I know I need to go back and reread AtD, but I've just begun rereading GR.  So it'll be a while.

As to Japan, well, they have embraced Western economics and vice, but I think the dominant frame of reference there remains deeply rooted in Eastern traditions.  But I have not actually been there.  My experience comes only from the few Japanese whose acquaintance it has been my privilege to enjoy.

Best,
-i

  ----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at yahoo.ca>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 5, 2008 2:58:57 PM
Subject: Re: TRP and Godzilla, misc.

  Welcome!

  You have a long sweet ride ahead, if you can and have time.

  I would suggest that, for whatever reasons, he did not feel the Japan of his time---more West
  than not?---was relevant to his writing concerns---or his pilgrimage, whatever it has been (and still is).

  I would respectfully say that Mr. Pynchon has gotten deep into many Eastern ideas, attitudes and "truths" in AtD and elsewhere but we are all working out our thoughts about that and, for sure, he embodies whatever "ideas' he has in creative ways in his fiction...

  As one of our posters, at least, has written: the books are fiction not political theeory nor religious tracts.....so, 'ideas' come obliquely, in scenes, images and repeated tropes....

  Please stay aboard and contribute and ask.......

  MK

Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at yahoo.ca> wrote:
      Could this have to do with his rejection of the East in V.?  He is decidedly western in his perspective and in his mysticism.  The references in AdT to Tibetan translators and translations seem imply the unlikelihood of successful efforts in the field.  Might this indicate a general rejection of Eastern thought?  I'm new here, help me out.

  ----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 5, 2008 9:45:52 AM
Subject: TRP and Godzilla, misc.

  I read online [in a paper] some [English] words from TRPs japanese translators, who say
  that in correspondence with his agent (and wife, we know), they learned (by asking) that
  one country TRP has never visited is Japan. 

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