IVIV photos, etc.

[Keith]

On Nov 1, 2009, at 8:31 AM, Doug Millison wrote:

Photos are pornography in Pynchon.  The picture of the sunset so  
pretty that no real sunset can match it, the movie of sex we'll never  
have -- in turning to the representations we turn away from the  
direct experience that life offers us, and impoverish our lives by  
taking the fake for the real.
--------------------------------------------------

I agree with this point as it pertains to photos or films as  
representational. The same could be said regarding nonfiction  
historical narratives or biographies when seen as representational.  
But, Pynchon demonstrates by his participation on the Simpsons and  
his creation of historical fiction, that art does not have to be  
representational, but can be, a la Marleau-Ponty, "a spectacle which  
is sufficient unto itself." The perception of art thus becomes a  
direct experience, not an experience mediating something the art  
represents. Because I agree with the point that TRP may be (who  
knows, really?) opposed to representationalism, I believe we often  
err when we interpret his novels by seeing them as representing  
historical or political or any other realities rather then seeing  
them as the spectacles they are on their own terms as non- 
representational art.