Lot 49, Waste, Stearn vs Pynchon,exorcism WTF?

[Joseph Tracy]

As I read some of the background Pynchon family history that Dave and  
Robin have posted I find myself asking what exactly is the role of  
his family history in TRP's writing and how should the reader  
consider its role in his novels.   Simply pointing out that it exists  
without an attempt to understand it , may be as misleading as it is  
enlightening to see that it exists and has an important place..  I  
think that by choosing Oedipa as protagonist and structuring  a story  
that parallels this ancient  myth TRP is subverting an interpretation  
that would see his work as a simplistic championing of the Pynchon  
family, and its thwarted role in history.  Rather it seems to show  
that any mining of real history, personal or collective,  is as  
dangerous and disturbing as Oedipus's search for his identity and  
Kingdom.   That P uses his own history feels very intuitively right  
for the postmodern enterprise, because of the concern for disclosure  
of context, self interest etc. Also it seems to anticipate and  
subvert an oversimplified deconstruction of his work.

I tend to be skeptical of a certain view I hear that Pynchon feels  
uniquely aggrieved by the losses of the Pynchons in history.  Rather  
I think that Pynchon's political artistic, scientific,  historic  
spiritual interests, form in solidarity with 60s radicalism  modern  
poetry and counterculture explorations, reaches out in  its  
encyclopedic and creative appetite in every direction, and finds  
sympathetic voices sounding deep into  every aspect  of human and  
personal  history which he draws into his own work, retaining and  
reinforcing  his sympathies for the used , abused and screwed up.

In light of that  history his paranoia and choice of form for  
cultural criticism is realistic. He is not interested in being a  
martyr  but an effective revolutionary voice with much to say. That a  
great independent and hardworking artist can often earn a good living  
is  one of the better aspects of the modern and postmodern world,  
that he retains his privacy is  an amazing affirmation of the  
unknowability of  .To me his gravitation to Buddhism  and the  
interest in the Book of the Dead is a reference to a process he views  
as central to life:   that is the process of death and rebirth that   
allows humans to retain a sense of humor  after encountering and   
blinding the self and dying through an honest engagement with human  
history with all its suffering, cruelty, greed and violence.

Reading about Giordano Bruno today was a  great example of this  
finding sympathetic voices who went through similar experiences and  
worked through similar thoughts in another time and place.  For me  
this process started around 14 when I read the letters of Vincent Van  
Gogh and has never stopped. From Aeschylus  to Lenny Bruce,  from  
Varo to Swift, from Harvard to every street  in the world there have  
always been  wise asses and naked Emperors, idol makers and artists.