Repost: "The Big One"

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Paul Mackin:
          I just didn't enjoy reading AtD as much as GR. Maybe GR was 
          more sinister (to use Mike's word). For me it was better.

I really don't have a problem with that. That word "Sinister" is 
well worth looking at in the context of Magic, Religion & Heresy

          sinister definition
          sin·is·ter 
          adjective
          ARCHAIC on, to, or toward the left-hand side; left
          HERALDRY on the left side of a shield 
          (the right as seen by the viewer)
          threatening harm, evil, or misfortune; ominous; 
          portentous sinister storm clouds
          wicked, evil, or dishonest, esp. in some dark, 
          mysterious way a sinister plot
          most unfavorable or unfortunate; disastrous met a sinister fate
          Etymology: ME sinistre < L sinister, left-hand, or unlucky (side), 
          orig. lucky (side) < IE base *sene-, to prepare, achieve > . . .
          . . .more favorable: early Roman augurs faced south, 
          with the east (lucky side) to the left, but the Greeks (followed by 
          later Romans) faced north

Sinister" =  "The Left Hand Path":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-Hand_Path_and_Right-Hand_Path

          P: I personally don't GET why everything in 
          P's oeuvre needs to be tied together in AtD.

Me neither, and yet it is. OBA seeks interconnection everywhere.
"Everything Connects."

          On the topic of Spiritualism or the Metaphysical 
          (in one sense of that word) that Robin emphasizes 
          so much, I liked the topic's coverage in GR better.

The "Sinister" aspects rise to the surface in GR, it is his vision of hell, 
you know. And for many, understandably, "Sinister" is what Pynchon 
is all about, Lamont Cranston is one of the author's voices that folks 
are most attracted to. That "Sinister" literary tone color, that particular 
timbre is what makes Pynchon worth reading for many of his readers. 
Though there's plenty of left-handed activity going down in "Against 
the Day", the Narrator's Tone is the lightest of any of his books. 
Considering that one of the central topicks is light, we should not be 
too suprised.

<snip>

          . . . .That anti-romantic outcome is the irony of it all.

          I'm being a little heretical I realize, but as 
          Robin sez Pynchon is into heresy.

          Actually writers HAVE to be heretical. Why else bother.

Yes, true. Pynchon pulls a Randy Newman in many of GR's 
passages, trying to get us inside the heads and hearts of 
monsters. 

Looking at the Pynchon family history, Heresy is central. 
It's a major subplot in the story of the British establishment of 
Colonies in "The New World," the William Pynchon/Slothrop story.