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

[Mark Kohut]

John Bailey writes:
"you can't even begin to say the same
thing about feminist thought, conversely)."

About "feminist thought" that may be true, but about a
deep concept of The Feminine in history, remember V. and The White Goddess?, maybe anti-second-wave
feminism of the 20th Century BUT still worth exploring imho AND pervasive as a force, a slowly burgeoning force--and value--- in the history that is AtD, I suggest.



The guy's work is almost as rich as life, I say hyperbolically, so we all have so many perspectives and so much to say........




--- On Tue, 12/1/09, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: rubrics (I like that word), wrecking crews and hugfests
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 6:21 PM
> 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.
> >
>