AtD, naming

[Bryan Snyder]

All true - but I'd like to go deeper if that's ok...

but that's too generic of a problem for Pynchon... Which is why Eddins in
TGP refers repeatedly (actually bases the entire book on) to the gnosticism
of Voegelin which produces to different modes of gnostic existence and
introduces the tension of the metaxy and that tension is really to focal
point of both TGP and gnosticism throughout Pynchon's work... Although,
admittedly... Harder to point out in ATD than any other work...

Pynchon and Voegelin go way beyond the "world is flawed" step of gnostic
thought which is really basic... This idea extrapolates to both (arguably
all) transcendent religious beliefs to science's revolution against "lovable
but scatterbrained mother nature"... The idea of "taking from the debris of
what's given" the creation of synthetics ... All of this is born from
human's reaction to the metaxy... A tension of man's order and logic vs.
nature's total indifference... The world is flawed and either we have to
leave it through death (or space travel) or we are capable of fixing it
through eco-political systems (Marx, Capitalism, Democracy, Communism) or
through science (Artificial Intelligence, Plastics)... Anything that goes
beyond the life-death partnership... And anything like that... MUST be
synthetic... 

Of course... I would also be the first to say that Pynchon layers this
onto-epistemological drama onto several other dramas at the same time... ALL
the time, which I think will (over time) come to be the pedestal his
brilliance is set upon...

He is the only author I've come across that can put this large philosophical
problem and connect it to other areas of human interest seamlessly... The
religious drama, the political drama, the science drama, the historical
drama between the haves and have-nots, every individual's own-personal
struggle with both identity and meaning across the religious... Social...
Environmental... Political... Scientific...


It's no wonder GR eventually refers to itself... Humans cannot look at these
conditions without looking at ourselves individually and GR cannot look at
these dramas and call out for a Holy Text, which is obviously itself.

"...now everybody."






On 5/12/08 9:29 AM, "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree that The Gnostic Pynchon is very good, but used books via
> Amazon are too expensive.  Try Abebooks:
> 
> http://www.abebooks.com/
> 
> I think the reason that Gnosticism (not gnosis) is so important to
> Pynchon is its concept of the world being the creation of a flawed
> (maybe even evil) god, the creator as the ultimate evil conspirator.
> This is a much more complex construct than "regular" Christianity with
> its God/Satan division.  With Gnosticism God IS the Devil.
> 
> David Morris
> 
> 2008/5/9 Bryan Snyder <wilsonistrey at gmail.com>:
>> The Gnostic Pynchon is still the most mind-opening parsing of Pynchon's
>> fiction I've ever read... You can find it used on Amazon and it's worth the
>> prices... Whatever they may be.
>> 
>> It's an amazing read, and not all that long either.
>> 
>> B
>> 
>> It will point you to a more important thinker of gnostic-thought (or
>> anti-gnostic thought): Eric Voegelin... And it's CLEAR Pynchon read and
>> understand Voegelin... Arguable that he agrees with Voegelin too, although
>> Pynchon would never be so explicit...
>> 
>> His silence on Voegelin (across al his works) is similar to the absence of
>> Einstein in ATD.