AtD, naming
David Payne
dpayne1912 at hotmail.com
Thu May 8 20:42:27 CDT 2008
Ian wrote:
>It is odd how things seem to become what we name them, and how the unnamed allures.
And Mark asked:
>In Pynchon, is Naming a 'reduction of choices", a reification of amorphous, anarchic life....?
"When the multiple outcomes of the night were apt to narrow to one in only clock-seconds, engine performance could mean everything" (AtD 464, Frank meditating after staring too long at Vang Feeley's crotch).
But be careful not mistake that which cannot be named with that which is not named, as only three pages later, when Frank's Ma, trapped(?), tries to spare him:
"What's going on?"
"Nothin 't'll do you any good to know."
Now I wouldn't know a gnostic from my arse (so go ahead and kick my tail real hard to teach me the difference), but insofar as naming is creation ("things seem to become what we name them"), is the act of naming an act of blundering, confusion, maybe downright evil--and is the gnosis unnameable?
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