rubrics (I like that word), wrecking crews and hugfests

[Mark Kohut]

Many plisters know as little, often less, about certain beliefs of other plisters who try to explicate a little Pynchon that they cannot know of what they charge. 

I have been called a neo-luddite because I think I can argue a fierce anti-technolgy, anti-science vision in TRPs work......

I am so far from neo-ludditism, I think, that I have to laugh.....I used to quote, still do, Chekhov, Doctor Chekhov, who semi-famously said, against the anti-science factions of his Russia, that anesthesia has done more to reduce the suffering of humanity, especially the poor, than most(all?) of the social movements/activists in history...

One reason I LOVE Pynchon is that he is an artist with a vision much of which I could never have had even in banal prose, even from other writers, so I have learned perspectives, incredible insights, a special human sense of history from him, among much else.

Yet, of course it is true that I read and try to explicate Pynchon from my own knowledge, judgment, reading, mind and "what I have gathered by coincidence". Too narcissistic and I am too stupid in my supposed understanding. 

Yet, his words are there, with meaning(s)we can 'get'--or not--, 'get' some of or radically miss. Or stupidly miss. Like understanding another artist, any another individual. Insert here that famous-enough Philip Roth line about Always Getting Another [human being] Wrong.......

Meanwhile, I'll keep reading and posting. 



--- On Tue, 12/1/09, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: rubrics (I like that word), wrecking crews and hugfests
> To: "Robin Landseadel" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 4:03 PM
> I have no knowledge of Pynchon's
> beliefs, or unbelief's.  As has been
> repeatedly stated here by numerous readers, one tends to
> see Pynchon's
> texts almost as mirrors of one's own perspective because he
> includes
> so many possibilities.  So I laugh a bit when someone
> here thinks
> Pynchon is an adept or disciple at any particular (or even
> general)
> system.  But then that mirrors my perspective as an
> agnostic.
> 
> But belief does "work like that."  Believing is
> seeing, participating
> and witnessing.  I've done my share, and still do from
> time to time.
> Personally I like the wisdom/divination of the I
> Ching.  But I think
> that's because, like so many systems it is very open-ended,
> and one
> gets what one brings into it,  though I do allow for
> some possibility
> of extra-whatever interaction.
> 
> Peace,
> David Morris
> 
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Robin Landseadel
> <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
> wrote:
> >
> > Believer? Doesn't really work like that. Participant?
> Sure, been there, done that, doing something else right now.
> I'm enough of a participant-witness to be able use Occam's
> Razor and figure that if it quacks like a duck . . .
>