Pynchon & dreams & We

[Ian Livingston]

It is an implicit tenet of Gnosticism that a person moves from being
in bondage to fate into the estate of master of his destiny when he
turns his attention from what happens to him to what he can enact.  I
wonder if the master of his destiny need still be in opposition to
some imagined hostile other.  It has been growing in my thoughts on
TRP that he might be nudging our attention toward that line of
thinking.  I have not tested the idea sufficiently to call it a
thesis, but it seems to me possible.

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 10:40 AM, alice
wellintown<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> "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.
>
>