The meaing of mathematics in Against the Day.....

[Ian Livingston]

Well, if you are going to call Against the Day crap, you certainly
need to qualify yourself. I've read an awful lot of great literature
in my few days on Earth, and some that actually was not good at all.
That doesn't qualify me to say AtD is the greatest book ever written
or a waste of natural resources, but it is my opinion that it is among
the richest and most engaging novels I have read in recent years. If
you are reading literature that is not crap -- that is so not crap it
qualifies as a measure of what is and is not crap -- I'd love to hear
about this great stuff you are reading.


On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Ray Easton <kraimie at kraimie.net> wrote:
> Robin Landseadel wrote:
>>
>> On Mar 19, 2010, at 8:20 AM, Ray Easton wrote:
>>
>>> Robin Landseadel wrote:
>>>>
>>>> First off, Joseph's right—maths are a big theme all the way through
>>>> "Against the Day," one would have to be DENSE [like Doc, I guess . . .] not
>>>> to see that. Thus time travel and multiple appearances by Tesla and other
>>>> science fiction/fantasy paraphernalia associated with these massive,
>>>> foundational, changes in math—particularly the rise of 'imaginary numbers'.
>>>> Again, and I repeat—I'm sure it was not lost on Pynchon how central
>>>> Quarterions are to computer animation and the creation of fully imaginary
>>>> visual realms. If "Against the Day" is about anything, it's about quantum
>>>> shifts.
>>>
>>>
>>> Please explain to me what the zeta function has to do with any "theme" of
>>> AtD.  I'd really like to know.
>>
>> I'm not a mathematician and I suspect that you are. Of course, forks are
>> spilled all over the roads in AtD, some are like Vectors/Quaternions others
>> are [literarily] AC contra DC, still others are along the lines of Alchemy
>> v. Science, Animism v. Newtonian Physics v. Quantum Physics. . These
>> "forks', as I said before, fill up the book. I really don't know much of
>> anything concerning "multiverses" but it's clear that Pynchon is pointing to
>> that concept as well. Perhaps you have a higher standard for this sort of
>> thing, On the other hand perhaps there's something about the comic tone of
>> AtD that sets you off. I found a multiplicity of genre voices in AtD. This
>> theme also suggested to me another theme related to the concept of the
>> Multiverse. Maybe you know a great deal more on these subjects and can
>> elucidate us on the subject. Perhaps words won't do, perhaps only equations
>> would suffice. Of course, Pynchon is a writer, after all . . .
>
> I disagreed with the claims made by a blogger about the manner in which
> mathematics is used/discussed in AtD.
>
> As I've said before, I do NOT think the lack of a discussion of the
> "foundational crisis" is a flaw in AtD.  I do not think the book suffers
> from the absence of such.  I do not think the fact (as I see it) that the
> details of the actual content of the mathematics presented in AtD has little
> or nothing to do with any overarching theme is a flaw in AtD.  I have posted
> about the manner in which I see mathematics being used in AtD before, and I
> don't find this use in any way objectionable.  It is true that I think the
> book is crap, but not for reasons of that sort.
>
>
>>>
>>>
>>> Who said "the rest is Crap"?  Not me.  I don't find any of the novels
>>> "crap" with the exception of AtD.
>>
>> Saying AtD is "Crap" will suffice for the moment. Amazing how much time is
>> spent on blogs and forums in claims of intellectual superiority. Perhaps
>> it's built into the nature of the medium?
>>
>
> I'm not claiming that I am Pynchon's intellectual superior nor that I myself
> can write a better novel than AtD.  If that were the standard that needs to
> be met before judging the worth, or lack thereof, of a novel, I suspect that
> none of us on this list are in any position ever to have any opinion about
> the value of any novel.
> But I can (sometimes) recognize crap when I see it.
>
> Ray
>
>
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."