CoL49 (6) Either ... or ...

[Mark Kohut]

I'm coming to see the Trystero as Jungian Shadow forces [archetype-lke] in History......murderous thugs (as the darkest forces are) but that was THEN, now there are all kinds of preterites and an "anarchist miracle"....all those groups soon to be called 'the counterculture' in America.

That some evil is what we might call 'existential'---that pampas riff from GR that Monte D. ,I believe, has oft-quoted; that blood feud in the Eastern European vilage community in ATD. Surely more. Psychic Shadow forces are always with us--like T.S. Eliot's necessary, he felt, embrace of Christianity's Original Sin,......   BUT, in a recent review was the phrase, "impersonal wars" [of the 20th C., I think]. Somehow I want to suggest that Pynchon's antimodernity epic---AtD---his savaging of History located (mostly) @
the beginning of the industrial revolution, is aimed at the Forces which have Nation-States killing millions, risking the End of History---"History is a step-funtion"--V---    

That Driblette dies after introducing three assassins NOT in the text seems like an authorial decision by Pynchon.....The Trystero changes FOR THE BETTER over time???

Or, as Robin offers, I still cannot understand this book fully even though I know part of its meaning is not getting it.



--- On Sat, 7/11/09, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> From: kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com>
> Subject: Re: CoL49 (6) Either ... or ...
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Saturday, July 11, 2009, 11:14 AM
> Goes back to your question of whether
> the Tristero are sympathetic.  Are they the "THEY who
> are out to get you" or are they the they who are out to get
> THEM?  Oedipa thinks they might be " a real alternative
> to the exitlessness, to the absence of surprise to life,
> that harrows the head of everybody American you know
> ..."  There's the idea that anything that's secretive,
> that's not out in the glaring commercial industrialized
> light, is somehow sympathetic merely by virtue of being
> different.
> 
> Different from the earlier picture of Tristero as a bunch
> of murderous grudge-bearing thugs intent on dominating the
> postal system, if not the world.  Some anti-semites
> might view Jews this way -- the dual nature of schemers
> trying to take over banks and governments vs. Holocaust
> victims (and therefore sympathetic).  In ATD Pynchon
> has a dual view of the anarchists -- positive, but murderers
> who blow things up.
> 
> Laura
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> 
> >Well, my qustion is, rather, ARE these either/or,
> mutually exclusive
> >states?  Recall the old caveat, just because
> you're paranoid, doesn't
> >mean They're NOT out to get you ...
> 
> >On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 9:29 AM, <kelber at mindspring.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >>>  She had heard all about excluded middles;
> they were bad shit, to
> >>>be avoided." (ibid.)
> >>
> >> Clumsy wording or profundity?  How do you avoid
> something that isn't there?  But maybe that's the essence
> of paranoia.  Fallopian's explanation, that Oedipa's whole
> quest had been set in motion as a prank on Inverarity's
> part, is something that Oedipa had avoided looking at.  It
> falls between the 0 (there's just America out there) and the
> 1 (there IS a Tristero at work).  Along with Oedipa, we
> don't want to believe Fallopian.  In fact, I don't believe
> him.  Surely it's a case of getting Oedipa to ask the wrong
> questions.  So examining excluded middles can actually be
> harmful, if it deters you from examining the stark truth.
> >
> >
> 
> 
>