IVIV (12): 195-197

[Joseph Tracy]

On Oct 31, 2009, at 2:27 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Nope....gonna continue being a contrarian here. (Although too busy  
> at the moment to give anything but the short obs and argument)
>
> Yes, P's subtlety opens into great resonant ambiguites...we do/are  
> exploring them.
>
> But, like a major poet with his tropes and images, he is full of  
> symbols/images, etc. used
> in very non-ambiguous ways. Very Manichean in use (as symbols)  
> which feed that ambiguity as we determine who, what and why they  
> are being used by and for.
>
> Simplistic examples: BAD: angles, esp right-angles; barb-wire;  
> crystals; iron, steel, railroads, North, cobblestones, und so weiter.
>
> Good: Bananas, Gardens, courtyards, water, beaches, purple (and  
> many other bright colors); songs, Venice, und so weiter.
>
> I suggest photos almost always fall under BAD. From Morris Teflon  
> trying to photograph Benny in THE ACT thru that scantily-clad woman  
> running from the guy with the camera early in AtD---a comment on  
> what has happened to Emerson's Nature, as one resonance---she is  
> running BECAUSE he has a camera, I say.....she wanted lovemaking  
> not 'shot', so to speak.
>
> I suggest that 24fps ends badly because in TRPs still-savage  
> satire, 24fps, with the self-indicted Frenesi, was misconceived  
> from the start.
>
> The Pequod is wrecked cause Ahab's 'quest' is misconceived. Same  
> kind of thing, a bit lower-scale, here.
>
> And, I think Pynchon shows, through what happens to Merle and Dally---
> Cf. the distancing, caught in that final so-poignant attempt at  
> communication....Merle at Candlebrow U?---a satirization fer sure,  
> yes?
> I suggest that P is always sayin' in AtD that what Merle has done  
> with silver "should not" have been done---for his vision; not, of  
> course, as a proscription within history.
>
> In most fiction we easily distinguish between characters'  
> intentions and the author's overarching vision...........are we  
> doing it enough here (in regard to photography, even maybe  
> technology in general?). We know a good bit about how Pynchon feels  
> about certain technological "achievements"----
> and I will bring up in my support all those who see Against the Day  
> as a massive work about how modernity has failed. Almost totally.  
> Modernity as the sociologists define it---and place it from @1880  
> to the present, the time of AtD and the time when most "modern"  
> technology began. (Cf. all the parallels between the computer and  
> the internet with THAT time period, just for example)
>
> I am always saying there is much less ambiguity in P's vision of  
> technology than many others say.
>
> I think there is more ambiguity in his characters than others like  
> Wood and Kakutani say.


Good subtle distinctions. I am  tending to agree with your concluding  
statements.  I think Merle is a good example, among many, who Pynchon  
clearly is very sympathetic and respectful to at the same time he  
questions the value of his  pursuits. And if Pynchon is in such  
adamant disagreement with the idea of measuring advancement by  
technology , it is a disagreement that is impressive in being at odds  
with his own interests in rocketry and physics. Merle, like the real  
Tesla,  is not really motivated by commerce or money and is  
protective of what he has invented. But Merle's will to control his  
inventions seems doomed.  Tesla dreamed of cheap power for all that  
would end resource wars, but the forces that shape that use of  
technology are more powerful than the most seemingly  liberating  
technology.  I think Merle exemplifies the dual personal sympathies  
of Pynchon. Kindness , nonviolent concern for justice ,  
vulnerability, combined with artistic tinkering of the highest order.

The whole idea of taking a photo and deriving a bigger picture of the  
context of the photo is much like Pynchon taking history and giving  
it human context. His mistrust for photography extends into a  
mistrust for text. He deliberately subverts the emergence or control  
of a clear authoritative voice, preferring a more  Zen Koan-like use  
of story and history, myth and wordplay.   His sense of mistrust for  
both text and photography  is based on respect for the power of these  
technologies. Imaging and labeling and falsely presenting history or  
any story from a godlike POV leads to a false sense of ownership and  
control and is  liable to have the same horrific effects as the  
Bible.  Why do people want to see a photo of Pynchon or watch him on  
TV except to give themselves a sense of control  over a force they  
don't understand. Genius of any kind is dangerous as well as  
wonderful. Who can imagine a more peaceable and gentle soul than  
Albert Einstein, he uses his imagination to reach a new   
understanding of light, matter and energy and becomes the father of  
the nuclear age because he publishes the math.

Crazy Horse also avoided being photographed. To stand in opposition  
to the Mad Juggernaut God of Progress requires the ability to keep  
your deepest wild spirit free and out of reach of the thing you oppose.









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> --- On Sat, 10/31/09, John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: IVIV (12): 195-197
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Cc: kelber at mindspring.com
>> Date: Saturday, October 31, 2009, 5:47 AM
>>> Photos are bad in the wrong
>> hands.  One of TRP's more sympathetic characters, Merle
>> in ATD, was a photographer, after all.  The zombie-like
>> Boards may be in cahoots with the Fang, or they may just be
>> looking for their stolen souls, but we-the-readers surely
>> don't support their ripping off Denis' pictures.
>> Spike's footage of the Chick Planet kidnapping is another
>> case in point.  Spike's documentary footage supplies
>> Doc with info about the bad guys, as does Fritz and Sparky's
>> computer hacking.  Now if the cops were doing it ...
>>>
>>> Laura
>>>
>>
>> Right. Good stuff, Laura.
>>
>> And the technology of cameras, and film, is right at the
>> heart of ATD
>> - the link from silver, as in silver mines, to silver, as
>> in halide,
>> and then onwards into moving pictures (pulling in GR and
>> Leibniz,
>> cannonballs, and calculus). We naturally think, also of
>> 24fps, which
>> may have ended badly, but was very much well-intentioned,
>> using film
>> technology to fight the power. If we were making a list of
>> Pyncon's
>> Themes, we'd have to include something about Technology,
>> right? But
>> whether it's ATD or IV, GR or Ok to be a Luddite, the key
>> always seems
>> to be ambivalence, the downside being a fear of what the
>> technology
>> can do in the wrong hands and, ultimately, what can be done
>> once
>> technology is literally *in* the wrong hands, eh, when
>> technology
>> crosses that human/machine boundary?
>>
>> Maybe Doc watching that film of Chick Planet, knowing he is
>> watching a
>> scene which included/indludes him is very much a key to IV?
>> Doc is
>> watching a weird scene, with the spine-chilling thought
>> that *he is in
>> there, somewhere*. Which is kinda similar to Pynchon's
>> perspective on
>> IV, since he literally *is* in there somewhere, in the
>> background at
>> teh very least. It's one of, in fact I would reckon it's
>> *the most*,
>> important aspects of the book: the additional levels at
>> which some
>> sort of 'investigation' is taking place: Doc is
>> investigating 'what
>> happened to Mickey', but he's also sort of investigating
>> what happened
>> to The Sixties, isn't he? Pynchon the Younger is in there,
>> writing GR
>> on the beach, but he's also there as Pynchon the Elder,
>> looking back
>> on what happened to him and *his* Sixties. Most importantly
>> of all, we
>> are investigating all these levels, picking our way through
>> this
>> palimpsest, and yet we wonder, still, "is there more to
>> this than
>> meets the eye?"
>>
>>
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