IVIV (12): 195-197

[Mark Kohut]

Right on Merle; how soon I forget.

I do not think Pynchon would decry such photos used for social justice either, but I do think his vision of modernity transcends such...............

He does not, as we know, comment much on particular social events. We have read him on computers, from the 90s---he's agin them, in general, perhaps BECAUSE with his paranoia about Them, he knows they will be used against us,even if a computer does help solve Doc's case.

And I would say he is so deeply concerned with "social justice" that he tries to see how the whole world we live(d) in, that the young girl was so painfully damaged in, came to be----and therefore might have been different
IF......

Which part of this post you and others might agree with at least......

--- On Sat, 10/31/09, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> From: kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com>
> Subject: Re: IVIV (12): 195-197
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Saturday, October 31, 2009, 3:05 PM
> Just want to point out that the
> photographer the scantily clad woman is running away from is
> good old Merle.  I don't believe, anyway, that TRP
> would decry photos such as the one of the napalmed little
> Vietnamese girl, that are taken and used for purposes of
> social justice, not social control.
> 
> Laura
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> >Sent: Oct 31, 2009 2:27 PM
> >To: John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com>
> >Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >Subject: Re: IVIV (12): 195-197
> >
> >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. 
> >
> >
> >  
> > 
> >
> >
> > 
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >--- 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?"
> >> 
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >      
> >
> 
> 
>