ATDTDA 751 part 2

[Mark Kohut]

I second the concept of relativity association.....Einstein's notion has often been expressed with this example, I think.
(at least it was how I first tried to comprehend it from some book or other).............

Which leads me to saddle up my hobbyhorse again: "Railroad metaphysics" is unhappy metaphysics
in Pynchon's Weltanschauung, I daresay.....

I think he indicts the 'metaphysics' Kit experiences--railroad-metaphysics; NOW, maybe I get the phrase, so nice--- with this:
the regular three dimensional world inside time proceeding naturally, normally, second by second
at a human pace, so to speak, is now accelerated......excess velocity, part of the reason modernity
is not-human, is what Kit experiences...........

Notice that time speeds up and slows down perceptually ('cause the train does).....distorts.......

MK

I too am reading and reading "the Idiot" find and association.....Great, Ya Sam.


----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com>; Pynchon Liste <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 1:13:55 PM
Subject: Re: ATDTDA 751 part 2

On 2/19/08, Ya Sam wrote:
>
> railroad-metaphysics
>

& great Dostoevskii quote...

on a tangential, tenuous note, I want to add an association here.
Kit is standing between the railway cars, turning to see the different
landscapes on left and right.

Later in the chapter, Halfcourt teases somebody, or is teased,
about becoming a  dervish.

Isn't Kit turning somewhat like the dervish (with an added
vector of forward motion on the train - which leads directly to thoughts
of relativity, at least in my twisted Weltanschauung)

also the reference to the mass of the world passing by, again
relativistically speaking - so that in a way, the old-school geocentric
view is seen as true - the world isn't moving so much as the universe
is whirling around it; Kit and the train aren't moving but rather from
his POV the mountains and desert are moving; and as in the
joke, the blond is standing still while the world revolves around her...


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page. 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20080220/b3b0d12c/attachment-0001.html>