V.-2 - 1: Yo-yoing versus free will

[Mark Kohut]

Laura sez:
"It's hard to know the exact source of his (or Pynchon's) anxiety about the inanimate."

Sure as hell is. Where plumbing the sources of causation in the usual ways fails with a genius. Somehow,
getting to a 'mature' internalization of the knowledge of mortality--as he intimates in that 
Slow Learner intro--happened, maybe? Internalizing mortality can lead to a heightened
appreciation of life and life only, to quote his contemporary, Bobby D, yes? 

I think Benny's line about feeling he is the only living thing around MUST be an autobiographical feeling
and, whether it is or isn't, the introduction of this theme IS the beginning of exploring it in his society and in history
in his life's work, I suggest strongly. 

This 'touches bottom' in his vision, to use a concept from a poet about Shakespeare. 



----- Original Message ----
From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Mon, June 14, 2010 11:33:26 PM
Subject: V.-2 - 1: Yo-yoing versus free will

The paranoia in GR stems, in part, from terror of The Bomb - Death From Above - as represented by the parabola.  In V., Benny Profane's consumed with terror of the mechanistic, the inanimate.  He continually finds himself on a rigid, pre-determined yo-yo path, back and forth along the east coast, back and forth on the ferry, or on the 42nd Street shuttle.  It's hard to know the exact source of his (or Pynchon's) anxiety about the inanimate. Is it the nascent fear of the military-industrial complex that crops up more explicitly in his later books?  Or does it stem from the mood of the times, when new-improved Space Age Technology was on everyone's mind (particularly emphatic, no doubt, at Boeing Aircraft), the term cyborg had just been coined in terms of engineering humans for long-term space travel, etc.?

Nowadays, Benny's fear of being in a close relationship with the inanimate (such as Rachel was with her car)seems particularly prescient, as our computers and phones become less like tools and more like prostheses.  Was Pynchon picking up on this futuristic vibe when he reported to work at Boeing each day?

If Benny's a yo-yo, with no ability to control his own destiny, what's Paola?  On the face of it, she has no freedom.  She's trapped on the lowest rungs of society, completely dependent on men to take her away from wherever she is. She briefly gets trapped in yo-yo mode when she takes a ferry ride with Benny, but she's able to break free.  Although she's dependent on Men, she's free to choose which man, which path, and she never returns.  She marries Pappy Hod to get from Malta to America, she's "cast loose at her own whim" from the marriage, considers and rejects the offer of passage to the west coast by Pig Bodine, opting instead to go up the coast to NYC with Benny.  She ditches him later (or vice versa?).  He opts for the machine-loving Rachel instead.  

Paola (or all of Malta?) experiences free will in ways that Benny and Rachel never can.  Is she a stand-in for the colonized (not free, but possessing non-industrialized culture)?  Something to keep in mind later when we get to the chapter about her father and Malta.  At the time Pynchon was writing V., Malta was still a British colony.  

Laura