Gegen den Tag

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Thomas Eckhardt:
          Don't get me wrong, Otto. I like Kittler, too, and enjoyed
          his contributions to the discussion very much. It is just 
          that I personally would have preferred a little more 
          literary criticism in the narrower meaning of the word. 
          For example, are the mathematics in AtD merely elements of 
          the novel's plot, or do they also have an influence on its 
          structure? Perhaps similar to the Iceland Spar which, 
          apart from its historical significance, seems to work as 
          some kind of metaphor with regard to the profusion of 
          doubles, mirror images, Doppelgaenger etc. in AtD? This 
          kind of stuff.

          Just off of the top of my head.

The novel's "Iceland Spar" episode serves to send us reeling back into 
mythic time, the time of the creation of Norse Myths, myths that develop 
into material objects, War-Gods finding physical manifestation as V-2's 
and other deadly objects. One can look at Math or Science or 
Technological needs or the development of the Military-Industrial
complex as TRP's dominant metaphors. I see Magick as just as big, 
if not bigger, metaphor of the complex functions within TRPV's writing. But
at the end of the day, all the brass rings he's reaching for are all
Literary.

I suppose "Areas of My Expertise" serves to pre-determine all outcomes 
in reading Pynchon, perhaps that is what makes his works masterpieces. 
And, yup, they are, Against the Day included, perhaps pre-eminently.

          As to the verities which the intellect-even of highly endowed 
          minds-gathers in the open road, in full daylight their value 
          can be very great; but those verities have rigid outlines and 
          are flat, they have no depth because no depths have been 
          sounded to reach them-they have not been recreated. It 
          often happens that writers who no longer exhibit these verities, 
          as they grow old, only use their intelligence which has acquired 
          more and more power; and though for this reason, their mature 
          works are more able they have not the velvety quality of their 
          youthful ones.

          Nevertheless, I felt that the truths the intellect extracts from 
          immediate reality are not to be despised for they might enshrine, 
          with matter less pure but, nevertheless, vitalised by the mind, 
          intuitions the essence of which, being common to past and 
          present, carries us beyond time, but which are too rare and 
          precious to be the only elements in a work of art. . . .

          Marcel Proust, Time Regained 

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/p/proust/marcel/p96t/chapter3.html

In my copy of "Finding Time Again" the passage is on p 207 (the copy
you are reading is derived from the earlier "Rememberance of Things 
Past" translation). Ultimately Proust is tranceing about on his belle epoque
astral plane about consciousness, "reality" and enlightment, all subjects 
dear to our beloved writer as well. I'm sure someone who has read Henry
James can find parallels of similar intensity. The issue of consciousness
is central to Pynchon's work, and the issue of changing consciousness at 
will [one of the central definitions for working magic] is central to
Pynchon.as well. If it sounds like I'm defining OBA more in terms of 
Magical Realism, so be it. Hey, if it's good enough for Paris Hilton:

          Paris Hilton discusses Thomas Pynchon with Seth on The OC 
          (2.05pm, C4) she likes The Crying of Lot 49, but obviously thinks 
          Gravity's Rainbow is his masterpiece. Like, dur! 

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theguide/archives/week_2004_10_17.html
         
All that "hidden from us and necessary" re-contextualization, all the
re-claimed history serves to scoop up shovels full of time, in a 
recombinant form of history, one that might serve us best as an 
educational framework for discussion of our own time, full of laughter.
Tommy Boy is always a sucker for a good [or awful] pun.

http://www.littlereview.com/meg/tarot/barbietm.htm

I suppose the element of humor is greater [or more blatant] with Tommy
Boy than with Proust, but they both, in their roundabout ways, have
consciousness and the mirroring of that consciousness in material form, 
in the form of books, as their central concerns. Not to mention the 
creation and perpetuation of endless descriptive paragraphs.