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

[John Bailey]

That belief/disbelief dichotomy has always seemed a wrong path in P's
writing, for me at least. Aren't all of his novels from COL49 to AtD
largely concerned with the multitude of ways we try to order our
world, from science to occult systems to cinema/photography to
history-writing to politics to fiction itself? And each one is both
taken seriously and ridiculed at a very low level, constantly.

I agree that this method lends itself to reading our own interests
into the works, or ignoring some of that lampooning - for instance, I
think that P is more sympathetic to the inanimate world (inc machines)
than most have argued, but I couldn't be bothered backing that up
because there will be glaring counterexamples in the novels
themselves.

On the other hand I've always been a bit suspicious about P's gender
politics and IV is a pretty crappy novel in that regard. I don't
think, like Alice, that it's his most feminist novel but I do agree
that its kinda lame if it is.

One thing you can't argue with is that Pynchon may not 'believe' in
the Tarot or science or whatever, but damn he's interested in them. He
certainly knows a shitload about that stuff, more than a lot of
'believers' do, and different takes on all of those things are present
throughout all of his books. That freakishly high level of interest
has gotta count for something (you can't even begin to say the same
thing about feminist thought, conversely).

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 10:09 AM, Robin Landseadel
<robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
> On Dec 1, 2009, at 2:56 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
>> I have been called a neo-luddite because I think I can argue a fierce
>> anti-technolgy, anti-science vision in TRPs work......
>
> I can't help but see some elements of the eco-philosophy of Reclaiming in
> Pynchon's work.
>
> http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/seedball_arrest.html
>
>> 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...
>
> And I'm too plugged into the grid, too much of the time. One-time recording
> engineer, couch potato, audiophile, suckin' off PG & E's big tit..
>
>> 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.
>
> Before reading Pynchon, I had little or no awareness of the history of the
> CIA, it just didn't show up on my radar. Before reading Pynchon I had little
> or no knowledge of the Tarot, it didn't register on my personal radar. I
> fell that reading Pynchon pushed me in directions I wouldn't have taken if I
> didn't spend so much time reading his work.
>