AtDTDA 24: Psychical Espionage 670/673

[kelber at mindspring.com]

TRP always seems close to satirizing the psychical (how can we take a seance with Ruperta in attendance seriously?), before making a sudden turn and embracing it.  His depiction of the White Visitation crew in GR is similarly mocking and reverent.

This exchange between Reef and Kit (p. 670) sums up his love-hate attitude nicely:

"Kit shrugged inside an envelope of smoke.  'Don't know how scientific it is, but lately there's this "Psychical Research" -- laboratories, experiments and so forth.'

'And ain't it just the bunk.'

'So were wireless waves, and not all that long ago.  Roentgen rays, whatever rays are coming next.  Seems every day somebody's discovering another new piece of the spectrum, out there beyond visible light, or a new extension of the mind beyond conscious thought, and maybe someplace far away the two domains are even connected up.'

Reef shook his head as if embarrassed.  'They build a wireless telephone that we can talk to Pa on it, you'll let me know, won't you.'"


Of course, right after this, Reef becomes that wireless.  Kit seems to be speaking for TRP when he supposes that the domains of the scientific and psychical are connected.  But the way he portrays the psychic community (here and in GR) has a very different tone than the way he presents, say, Miles' encounters with the mystical.  I take this to mean that TRP believes in the psychic realm while feeling that most of its devotees are full of shit.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>

>
>I am blown away with this post.......
>  
>  I'm still tryijng to sort out the magic and---IT Always  WORKS!.   I am going to notice better my next reads but  WOW......
>  
>  Now that is a generalization worth building a book on.......
>
>robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:  So here's my straight poop---Call it "Witchy Scrye for The Muggley 
>Guy"*---Ms. Ecstatica is the real deal. Reef blows his top on account 
>of Madame Eskimoff not sounding in the least like Webb. So this hot 
>little divining rod gets Reef to function as channel, and whatcha know, 
>Pa shows up. Reef blanks out, is freaked, Kit tells 'em he even looked
>like Pa. Reef ends up wondering who the hell he is, really, sez "next 
>time get me a photo".
>
>As regards the author's take on all this, note that Webb, Like 
>Brigidier Pudding and Pierce Inverarity and a host of other characters, 
>is still in the story, still has his say to say and so on. Reef & Kit look on 
>their marytered father as requiring revenge, Webb's already past that. 
>Pynchon follows the spiritual progress of characters well into their 
>afterlives.
>
>Bonus quest: Show me an example in TRP's works where the "Magic" 
>doesn't work. I'm not talking metaphorically here, I talking about the 
>specific scenes where obvious magical systems---Scrying, Tarot, Spells 
>and so on are invoked/deployed. Geli's spell works wonders, Rebekah 
>doesn't let a little thing like being dead get in the way of her changing 
>the course of a relationship between her widowed husband and his 
>soon to be best friend---hell, even little Hepsie's on to something.
>
>*Corollary to "High Magic in Low Puns": the more groan inducing the
>pun, the greater the likelihood of embedded truth in the pun. Least-
>aways that's how it works out in Pynchon. "Young -Fur- Henchmen"
>turns out to be meaningful in more than one direction. Charles 
>Hollander talks about a "Magic Eye" interpretation to find his conspiracy
>threads, but a straight out "Magick" reading of Pynchon leaves one
>dazed by the seemingly endless allusions to Magick & Metaphysics.
>Particularly "Against the Day".
>
>
>       
>---------------------------------
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