IVIV (11) 176

[Mark Kohut]

Besides You being Everybody in GR, I have just read ONE of the passages in GR very exactly akin to Mucho's reflections----basically, that there are ways weare all 'one', alike, sharing the same archtypal experiences---such as when in love, say.  

--- On Tue, 10/27/09, Clément Lévy <clemlevy at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Clément Lévy <clemlevy at gmail.com>
> Subject: IVIV (11) 176
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2009, 12:14 PM
> - each listening on headphones to a
> different rock 'n' roll album and moving around at a
> different rhythm"
> It may recall the deaf-mute dancing scene in The Crying of
> Lot 49, p. 90, in my 127 pp. paperback edition, but there is
> also something much clearer here, and it is quoted by Levine
> in the paper mentioned earlier: Levine, Michael L. "The
> Vagueness of Difference: You, the Reader and the Dream of
> Gravity's Rainbow." Pynchon Notes 44–45 (1999): 117–31.
> Here's Pynchon's TCOL49 passage:
> Whenever I put the headset on now,' he continued, 'I really
> do understand what I find there. When those kids sing about
> "She loves you", yeah well, you know, she does, she's any
> number of people, all over the world, back through time,
> different colours, sizes, ages, shapes, distances from
> death, but she loves. And the "you" is everybody. And
> herself. Oedipa, the human voice, you know, it's a flipping
> miracle.' His eyes brimming, reflecting the colour of beer.
> (99)
> And Levine's comments:
> « The fact that Mucho is speaking under the influence of
> LSD lets Pynchon throw out this idea as primarily a joke,
> although Pynchon demonstrates as well as anyone else how
> serious jokes can be. In Gravity's Rainbow, however, the
> idea that "'you' is everybody" does not seem at all like the
> product of a drug-addled mind; it is built into the very
> structure of the novel. This realization might make close
> attention to the ambiguity in Pynchon's use of the second
> person seem pointless. Yet only by sorting out the possible
> referents of "you" in any given instance can we see how
> inclusive a normally exclusive word can be. If "you" should
> be read as "everybody," realizing exactly who "everybody" is
> is nevertheless important, if for no other reason than to
> remind us that it refers to actual people, not merely to an
> abstraction. » (127)
> 
> - more important here is the fact that rock 'n' roll is not
> going to be free anymore. It is as if Doc only knew music
> through open-air free concerts. The "glimpse at the other
> side" shows how Doc realizes that "everybody" is going to
> prefer private ownership of records bought in stores after a
> cautious listening via headphones. The major companies will
> love that until Internet, mp3, Napster, The Pirate Bay and
> the controversies about Digital Rights Management and public
> domain. See Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, a free book on
> this matter:
> http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/
> 
> - headphones, a pun explained on the wiki: http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11#Page_176
> 
> - Dark Shadows, a gothic soap-opera (1966-1971). Pynchon is
> still very timely.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Shadows
> and its theme, a rather difficult melody
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvO1b3f4DGs
>