Pynchon defines Thanatoids?

[Ian Livingston]

I have to go with the "both / and" approach whenever I look at themes
in P. Yes, Freud is inevitable, as is Jung, Wittgenstein, etc., but
there always seems to be more to it. When P. sticks to something, it
seems to imply an expansion of the metaphor itself. The Dead are never
dead to us, really. In the Western hemisphere, for instance, we are so
haunted by our holocaust, we can't look directly at it, but have to
focus our attention on the German, Bosnian, Anybody's-but-our-own. The
same with our revulsion at direct regard of the labor abuses, racial
abuses, and sexual abuses a mere lifetime ago. We are too young to
acknowledge the severity of our own crimes. Death is not real. Denial
creates an umbra of shadow that permeates the present and whispers
longingly in our ears for release. The dead are not dead enough. We
have not made our amends with them. They call to us, urge us to
something we sense but cannot say directly. It may be neither thanatos
nor eros, but something that includes both.... It troubles us. We turn
on the Tube. The dead have voices there.

On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 7:03 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
<lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
> Actually you are, imo, mixing up two different things here.
>
> One of Pynchon's basic themes - from "V"'s V to the Zombies in "Inherent Vice" -
> is the growing presence of what Freud called the death instict ("Todestrieb")
> in modern man. This is, especially via the returning Vietnam soldiers, also connected
> to the effects of 20th century warfare. The simple definition "Vineland" gives of
> "thanatoid" is "like dead, only different". You could also say --- FROZEN.
>
> Another (important) theme in Pynchon is how we exist in memory of our dead relatives
> and friends.
>
> Kai
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfilSjFKHyI
>
> ----------------------------------------
>> From: gavinf at homemail.com.au
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Subject: Pynchon defines Thanatoids?
>> Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2010 21:54:38 +1100
>>
>> Hi all
>>
>> I have been a fan of TRP for years but only recently discovered the
>> wikis and this list. The Vineland wiki contains some thoughts on who
>> or what the Thanatoids really are, and such discussion I have seen
>> focusses their context in Vineland with respect to The Tube and the
>> 60s. None of the discussion seems very certain or conclusive. I think
>> TRP himself has since provided us the answer. I am nearly finished
>> Against The Day and discovered this on page 922 of the Jonathan Cape
>> hardback edition: "...but our dead never stopped belonging to us,
>> they haunt us every day, don't you see, and we got to stay true, they
>> wouldn't forgive us if we wandered off the trail".
>>
>> It all makes sense now.
>>
>> tonebuddha
>>
>> PS and yes, ATD is blowing my tiny little mind
>>
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."