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

[David Morris]

You've pretty well summed up my thoughts about "that
believe/disbelieve dichotomy" in reading Pynchon.  Good post.

On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 5:21 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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).