rubrics (I like that word), wrecking crews and hugfests

[Carvill, John]

Hey, malign - some of your email is missing, I think. I mean, where's the gratuitously insulting segment?

<<

<<I've often wondered how seriously Pynchon takes that sort of thing. 
Tarot in GR, ferrinstance. But writing occult-informed/inflected works, 
and satirising occultism, well, it's that sort of duality that makes 
Pynchon Pynchon.>>

I don't know if this is a rhetorical question or not but isn't it a 
given that Pynchon doesn't--couldn't possibly--take this stuff 
seriously?  That Pynchon's belief system includes card reading and 
Madame Blavatsky and the Rosecrusians, et al?  Does anyone--leave alone 
Pynchon--in his right mind, with a proper education, with no emotional 
issues, believe in this stuff?

>>

Well, what about that biographical article re. Pynchon living in Manhattan Beach, the one on Modern World, where he's referred to as Ervin...oh hell...let me look it up... here:

http://www.themodernword.com/Pynchon/pynchon_biography.html

Here's the section I mean:

"Once, on a rainy day at Ervin's pad, we sat crossed-legged and did a Tarot reading for our deceased friend Raven. This was during the time when Ervin was still working diligently on a massive novel in which he said the plot was like that of an octopus, the tentacles going off in every direction. Ervin might have learned how to do a Tarot reading from his live-in girl friend, Veronica, or it might have had to do with a working knowledge of the cards that he would insert in his massive new work in progress. Veronica was a very attractive: petite with long black hair and sizzling dark eyes, playing with the occult magic that permeated Southern California in the 70's. She was probably in her early 20's because I met Ervin when I was approximately that age. He was 33 years old when he was finishing off his third massive novel, after all. He spread the cards out in front of us and then said he wanted to see where Raven was at that time. He slipped a card from the deck and placed it face up on another card face down. The card from the deck was The Hanged Man. Ervin turned to me and said Raven must be hung-up on the other side. As we sat, the rain pelted the windows, but we were nice and cozy. Ervin's eyes had a quizzical look to them when he said this about Raven. I looked down and pondered the odd picture on the card: a man dangling upside down with his feet tied as he hung from some wooden scaffold. Down below Ervin's perch, the Pacific lashed in its fury at the shoreline."

Yes, there are a couple of provisos here - we can't be sure this 'biographical sketch' is genuine. But it seems so. And even if we accept it as genuine, we still can't say it 'proves' anything. But it seems to suggest an attitude towards Tarot, on Pynchon's part, which is not relentlessly skeptical.

<< Hemingway said he liked Catholicism because the pageantry it reminded 
him of bullfights. >>

What about Graham Greene? Was he only in it for the pageantry too?

Cheers
J