COL49 - Chap 2: San Narciso as a circuit board

[Mark Kohut]

I'm going to be the contrarian here. Modern technology---since the pervasive streetlight glare over everything in AtD, that is, since at least 1880----the year of V. birth we can work out in V.; the year of the first streetlights---has rooted out (most of) the human; and where it [the human] exists in patches, is as a kind of residue, I suggest. 

Where people 'love' technology in Pynchon, is, in general, where they fall short of the human. I have read the 90 degree rotation 
as a way of saying the lovemaking of Rachel and Profane was too mechanical, most metaphorically: wasn't face-to-face. Face to face is a trope of THE HUMAN in AtD, I say.

But, often wrong, seldom afraid to be (with TRP anyway). 

Mark



----- Original Message ----
From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 10:10:05 AM
Subject: Re: COL49 - Chap 2: San Narciso as a circuit board

I don't know.  I can't think of any specific descriptions of technology in ATD that are as riveting as the ones in V, COL49 and, to some extent, GR (think of Gottfried at the end of the book). Think of Profane and Rachel sleeping together, which Pynchon describes as rotating 90 degrees, as if they were part of a machine. In the earlier books, Pynchon is exploring the love/hate relationship between humans and technology.  The outcome of the struggle is uncertain.    In ATD, no matter how frightful the technology, humans are separate from it; they use it but aren't ONE with it.  Humanity has won.  Can anyone come think of an example from ATD, where humans are physically subsumed by technology (not just killed or blown up by it)?

Laura

>----- Original Message ----
>From: Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com>

>
>
>Natalia:
>
>> In AtD there are elaborate descriptions of technology AND of characters and their psychological 
>> conflicts... That's one of the reasons the book's so thick - Pynchon focuses on both themes, and 
>> emphasizes the last one a lot more than he did in GR ou V.
>
>Good point, and I think you're absolutely right that Pynchon wants to have it both ways in AtD. 
>Still, I'd contend that the characters in AtD are much thinner than the main characters in VL and
>M&D. Lake, for instance, is but a shallow version of Frenesi.