Rilke & Page 666 in my text ;-)

[David Morris]

Bravo Alice!
Great post and great, very insightful, review.  There hasn't been a
novel that rivals GR since (not even by Pynchon).

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 4:01 AM, alice wellintown
<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> Blicero's reading of Rilke is so warped that he  takes his
> mission as "transformation" of Earth into the Kingdom of
> Death. He longs, Weissmann longs, but he longs to part with
> humanity and nature. He will become the apotheosis of
> gnostic alchemy, a cult that seeks nothing less than a
> surrogate order that will dominate natural cycles through
> artifice and stasis. The term transformation, I'm sure,
> caused the hair on the back of those readers familiar enough
> with Rilke's use of this term back in 1973 that several
> early reviews of the novel claimed that the most important
> cultural figure in Gravity's Rainbow was Rainer Maria Rilke
> and that the book could be read as a serio-comic variation
> on Rilke's Duino Elegies and their German Romantic echoes in
> Nazi culture.  Weissmann's transformation is infrahuman,
> demonic, a Qlippoth in gnostic terms.  In fact, Enzian, who
> speculates that Blicero has become a "fabulous monster",
> explicitly connects his fate with the gnostic hierarchy.
> Enzian says, "If he is alive," he may have changed by now
> past our recognition. We could have driven under him in the
> sky today and never seen. Whatever happened at the end, he
> has transcended. Even if he's only dead. He's gone beyond
> his pain, his sin-driven deep into Their province, into
> control, synthesis and control [GR.660-61]. These terms
> (synthesis and control) are exactly those used by the ghost
> of Walter Rathenau to describe the gnostic principles that
> actually drive history, as opposed to surface illusions of
> cause and effect.  As an adherent to the Cartel, Blicero
> joins in encouraging the proliferation of "structures
> favoring Death." Look high, Death, death which is a
> pornography, Death which impersonates life. One of the
> reasons I insisted on the LSD as chemistry of METAPHYSICAL
> control, determinism during GRGR is that in GR the stakes
> are high. The Faustian Quest is for Earth's HOLY GRAIL, HER
> VIRGINITY and PROCREATIVE MYSTERY, and the Jive Ass
> Mother-Fucker's Formula for  SIN is Control  of the secrets
> in "the hearts of certain molecules" that will give them
> Power to synthesize an alternative to natural processes of
> Life itself  and to control the unfolding of all events,
> thus fulfilling the gnostic nightmare of stasis and
> omnipotence. It is this gnosis that has enabled Blicero to
> lose his last vestiges of moral responsibility in the
> transcendental labyrinths of control. The result of this
> divestiture is an aura of absolute and disembodied
> evil, of Qlippoth spirituality, that causes the band of
> homosexual prisoners-the "175'S" from the Dora camp-to
> choose Blicero as the head of an "invisible SS" that will
> carry beyond earthly bounds the principles of Nazi
> oppression: "He is the Zone's worst specter. He is
> malignant, he pervades the lengthening summer nights. Like a
> cankered root he is changing, growing toward winter, growing
> whiter, toward the idleness and the famine. ...His power is
> absolute. "
>
> Now that's on page 666! Transformation!
>
>
>
> March 11, 1973
> One of the Longest, Most Difficult, Most Ambitious Novels in Years
> By RICHARD LOCKE
> Gravity's Rainbow By Thomas Pynchon
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-rainbow.html
>