COL49 - Chap 2: San Narciso as a circuit board

[Joseph Tracy]

On May 12, 2009, at 12:57 PM, Robin Landseadel wrote:

> Against the Day is such a strange book. It failed to fulfill the  
> anticipations and desires of so much of its audience, though I'm  
> sure the sub-sector of Steampunk enthusiasts went wild for the  
> loose, baggy monster. What struck me was how much of Against the  
> Day turned out to be a series of riffs and rim-shots off the  
> earlier books, none more so than The Crying of Lot 49—particularly  
> in the realm of stamps, seals, signs and countersigns—though the  
> family connections to Vineland run nearly as deep.
Where you see rim-shots off earlier books, I see a writer who always  
intended to take on large swaths of  human and particularly American  
experience and history  with his contrarian  satirical multilayered  
jazzy style that continues to evolve since V.  So, not rim-shots off  
earlier works but a continuity of themes that fascinate and several  
areas that he takes to new levels.   I see Against the Day as perhaps  
my favorite so it didn't disappoint all his readers. I think a lot of  
the reviewers who imply they read GR never did and most reviews of  
ATD so far are shallow and inadequate . The work judges them far more  
effectively than they judge the work.  I also think nothing can rivet  
the attention like the first time one freshly experiences the breadth  
and power and all purpose weirdness of this writer.


> I suspect that TRP has only so much time to spend on characters,  
> he's often more interested in describing the set where the action  
> is taking place than dwelling too much on the actors in that space.
Isn't it just as possible that Pynchon is inherently skeptical about  
the very idea of "character", particularly the idea of  character as  
a learning process leading to arrival at fulfilled maturity.. I just  
re-read his preface to 1984 and he talks about the sadness of Julia's  
conviction that her anarchistic free spirit and her ability to lie  
when needed will protect her from internalizing Big Brother's will  
and demand for compliance.  He is not hopeful about this kind of  
individual  resistance. He seems to think that  the right   
combination of technology and political power might still enable  
totalitarian mind control.  Also Buddhism tends to view the concept  
of the unique self and individual character as tending toward the  
delusional.  What is character anyway, and how much does it follow  
the internal narrative paradigm of western literature? It seems to me  
that  Pynchon favors the complexity of experience over the simplicity  
of internal gnosis, and the reality of how characters act and speak  
and even dream  over the stories that either the character or author  
spins in their heads.
>
> I've often thought of OBA's outlook as Gaian, emerging from the  
> same "Flash" shared by Mucho & Zoyd. Having one's doors of  
> perception chemically blasted open often led to witnessing the  
> essential aliveness of our planet and that attitude is frequently  
> expressed in Pynchon's writings. Mother Earth—Gaia—is as much a  
> character in Pynchon's writings as anybody else, seemingly more so  
> in Against the Day.
Yes.
>
> In any case, Pynchon always seems more interested in systems  
> analysis than in character development—wonder when the complete  
> Bomarc/Boeing writings of TRP will be published [because you know  
> they will]. The technologies on parade in Against the Day struck me  
> as a wonder, sublime antiquities and curios from another dimension.
>
> On May 12, 2009, at 7:10 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
>> Can anyone come think of an example from ATD, where humans are  
>> physically subsumed by technology (not just killed or blown up by  
>> it)?
>
> Kit was seduced/subsumed by dive-bombing. But not completely. . .
>
> On May 12, 2009, at 9:34 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>
>> As far as subsumed, what about the sub-desertine  craft the HMSF  
>> Saksaul. Where the front line troops of the empire are looking  
>> under the desert for oIl or Shambhala whichever comes first, if  
>> there is any difference.
>> Also what about the despair of the time ravelers who know the  
>> future, can travel in time but can think of no place better to go  
>> than the scene of the crime.
>>
>> As far a s riveting technology I thought the photographic  
>> process , the various uses of spar, and the Tesla techno-dreams- 
>> come-true were as good as it gets.
>