IVIV (2) Hope

[Tore Rye Andersen]

>From Pynchon's intro to 1984:

> "a faith so honourable that we can almost imagine Orwell, and perhaps
> even ourselves, for a moment anyway, swearing to do whatever must be
> done to keep it from ever being betrayed."

Doug:

> I read this as one of the bleakest observations in Pynchon's writing.
> We -- the world, the adults in the world -- including the author, know
> that the child's faith is going to be betrayed and we know that we are
> going to betray it, and there's nothing to do be done about that
> except hope that it might turn out otherwise. 
 
Well, it takes more than hope, doesn't it? It takes hard work and a 
conscious effort. 'Hoping' is the same as leaning back and waiting for 
someone else to take care of business, to count on that deus ex machina  
rescue, as you put it. That observation you quote from the beginning of
GR:
 
"You didn't really believe you'd be saved. Come, we all know who we  
are by now. No one was ever going to take the trouble to save _you_,  
old fellow. . ."(GR 4)
 
-- is really an admonition to take responsibility for our own lives
and those close to us. As you say, "Pynchon refuses to let us off the
hook," but what that really amounts to is that he refuses to let us
simply "hope that it might turn out otherwise." In the end, YOU are
the one who really decides whether you want to betray your child's
faith. You can't decide whether the world betrays it, that's out of
your hands, but you CAN decide whether you want to do more than just 
hope. And if you should do so, real hope may arise.
 
Alice:
 
> The fact that Pynchon says that we are allowed only *a moment*  to 
> swear that we will not betray our most sacred and human bond, does 
> not support the sentimental reading that Tore advanced.
 
A moment is all it takes to swear, to make a binding oath. It takes
a lifetime of hard work and conscious effort to keep that oath, though,
and that's why the sentimental tone is tinged with melancholy: Pynchon
knows that the oath is broken all too often, if it is even made, but
that is not the same as letting us off the hook. Pynchon is cynical
enough to know how the world usually works, but sentimental enough
to want to push it and us in a different direction, rather than 
letting us sit back and shake our heads wearily and cynically at it 
all.
 
In fact, that weary and cynical headshaking is what allows wars to
occur. All the characters in AtD are speaking of the impending war
as if it's a done deal, even years *before* it happens. They subject 
themselves to a false determinism - equal to saying that "there's nothing 
to do be done about that except hope that it might turn out otherwise" -
and by doing so, the war really does grow inevitable. Of course it
is naive to expect that a few individuals pushing in another direction
will change one bit. That is also Mason's and Dixon's excuse for
continuing their mission, even though they have their doubts about it.
But one thing's for certain: If we all think that way; if we lean
back resignedly and tell ourselves and each other that the forces of 
history can't be rerouted, then there really is no hope. Pynchon
tells us to wake up and realize that we ARE the forces of history:
 
"Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology [or the H on history], deify
it if it'll make you feel less responsible - but it puts you in with 
the neutered, brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem of our
stolen Earth for the numb and joyless hardons of human sultans, human
elite with no right at all to be where they are -" (GR, 521)
 
...or:
 
"You're chicken, she told herself, snapping her seat belt. This is 
America, you live in it, you let it happen. Let it unfurl." 
(Lot 49, 150)
 
...o-or, to return to those essays that express Pynchon's values more
unambiguously:
 
"Fiction and nonfiction alike are full of characters who fail to do what
they should because of the effort involved. How can we not recognize our 
world? Occasions for choosing good present themselves in public and 
private for us every day, and we pass them by. Acedia is the vernacular 
of everyday moral life." (Nearer, My Couch, to Thee)
 
Passive hope or weary cynicism is the same as Acedia, and it is not enough. 
 
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