Pynchon & dreams & We

[alice wellintown]

"that joint walking dream" AtD 106 is rendered wonderfully by D. H.
Lawrence in "The Spirit of the Place" chapter One of his classic
study, Studies in Classic American Literature. Now available online.

This master & slave anxiety of influence sets Webb against Cooley, Kit
gainst Webb. Although Webb says Vibe Corp buying his Sons away from
him so they can get to him, he also knows it is a curse; it is a cure
that will drive Lake to his murderers.

Brothers Betrayed are Ever as Cane and Able, Restless for the Road to
Caliban's America and Such Stuff that Dreams are made on.

Prospero:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.


The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158


http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/dhlawrence/bl-dhlaw-studies-1.htm


They came largely to get away - that most simple of motives. To get
away. Away from what? In the long run, away from themselves. Away from
everything. That's why most people have come to America, and still do
come. To get away from everything they are and have been.

'Henceforth be masterless.'

Which is all very well, but it isn't freedom. Rather the reverse. A
hopeless sort of constraint. It is never freedom till you kind
something you really positively want to be. And people in America have
always been shouting about the things they are not. Unless, of course,
they are millionaires, made or in the making.

And after all there is a positive side to the movement. All that vast
flood of human life that has flowed over the Atlantic in ships from
Europe to America has not flowed over simply on a tide of revulsion
from Europe and from the confinements of the European ways of life.
This revulsion was, and still is, I believe, the prime motive in
emigration. But there was some cause, even for the revulsion.

It seems as if at times man had a frenzy for getting away from any
control of any sort. In Europe the old Christianity was the real
master. The Church and the true aristocracy bore the responsibility
for the working out of the Christian ideals: a little irregularly,
maybe, but responsible nevertheless.

Mastery, kingship, fatherhood had their power destroyed at the time of
the Renaissance.

And it was precisely at this moment that the great drift over the
Atlantic started. What were men drifting away from? The old authority
ot Europe? Were they breaking the bonds of authority, and escaping to
a new more absolute unrestrained- ness ? Maybe. But there was more to
it.

Liberty is all very well, but men cannot live without masters. There
is always a master. And men either live in glad obedience to the
master they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposi- tion to
the master they wish to undermine. In America this frictional
opposition has been the vital factor. It has given the Yankee his
kick. Only the continual influx of more servile Europeans has provided
America with an obedient labouring class. The true obedience never
outlasting the hrst generation.

But there sits the old master, over in Europe. Like a parent.
Somewhere deep in every American heart lies a rebellion against the
old parenthood of Europe. Yet no American feels he has completely
escaped its mastery. Hence the slow, smoul- dering patience of
American opposition. The slow, smouldering corrosive obedience to the
old master Europe, the unwilling subject, the unremitting opposition.

Whatever else you are, be masterless.

Ca Ca Caliban

Get a new master, be a new man.