SciFi elements in "Gravity's Rainbow"?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Are alternate history stories necessarily science fiction?  Certainly, they're speculative fiction, but shouldn't there be something science-y in a sci-fi book?  Ditto for time travel.  By Robinson's definition, Slaughterhouse Five and Time and Again(Jack Finney) are science fiction.  I guess I've automatically considered The Man in the High Castle to be sci-fi, simply because it's written by PKD, but there's nothing particularly science-y about it.  

Arthur C. Clarke wrote various speculative novels taking place in the future, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, that were actually based on reasonable projections of where he thought technology would be in that near-distant future.  Amazingly accurate:  a partially-completed space station and an item called the NewsPad - a small flat object that could electronically access any newspaper.  He fell short on his ability to forecast political and economic developments.

I think GR appeals to people who like sci-fi because, although it isn't speculative, it has substantial hard science/math references that give it that science-y sci-fi feel.

Laura

PS- Kai, is there a link for info on the boy in the Nazi missile?




-----Original Message-----
>From: Tom Beshear <tbeshear at insightbb.com>
>Sent: Aug 21, 2011 11:21 AM
>To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>, pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Cc: braden.andrews at gmail.com
>Subject: Re: SciFi elements in "Gravity's Rainbow"?
>
>Well, it was nominated for the Nebula Award for best novel given by the 
>Science Fiction Writers of America. It didn't win (insufficiently sf? tho' 
>more likely voters were literarily and politically too conservative). Within 
>the broad set of sf, besides the alternate history is a subset called the 
>secret history. Perhaps Gravity's Rainbow fits better in that area.
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>To: "Kai Frederik Lorentzen" <lorentzen at hotmail.de>; "pynchon -l" 
><pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Cc: <braden.andrews at gmail.com>
>Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2011 8:09 AM
>Subject: Re: SciFi elements in "Gravity's Rainbow"?
>
>
>Susan Sontag, a great reader (but no one is perfect), argued, at least in 
>conversation with a young visual artist inspired
>by Pynchon's work that "Gravity's Rainbow" was "just' science fiction.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Cc:
>Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2011 6:43 AM
>Subject: SciFi elements in "Gravity's Rainbow"?
>
>
>Without serious doubt there are SciFi elements in Pynchon's work. Already in 
>"V" there's the androidity moment not only re V herself, but also - see 
>chapter 3. IV - in the case of Bongo-Shaftsbury who is called an 
>"electro-mechanical doll" which he demonstrates immediately: 
>"Bongo-Shaftsbury smiled. And pushed back the sleeve of his coat to remove a 
>cufflink. He rolled up the shirt cuff and thrust the naked underside of his 
>arm at the girl. Shiny and black, sewn into the flesh, was a miniature 
>electric switch. (...) Thin silver wires ran from its terminals up the arm, 
>disappearing under the sleeve. 'You see, Mildred. These wires run into my 
>brain. When the switch is closed like this I act the way I do now. When is 
>is thrown the other---'." In Pynchon's later novels we have, for example, 
>the Godzilla footprint, the hollow earth stuff and several refs to 
>extraterrestrial aliens. But what interests me today is the question you 
>read in the subject line.
> Some days ago I finished "The Novels of Philip K. Dick" [1984] by Kim 
>Stanley Robinson. In the last chapter Robinson discusses the distinction of 
>realism & SciFi and puts forth the thesis that this distinction is not a 
>strict one anymore. His example - in the translation it's pp. 261-262 - is 
>Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow". Well, I wish he would have gone a little more 
>into the details instead of giving the reader his summation. But since it's 
>like this, I'll just pass on Robinson's points and am going to add a comment 
>on the 'alternate history novel' argument. The SciFi elements Robinson sees 
>in "Gravity' Rainbow" are the following: a) Speculation on the basis of 
>technological progress; b) Radical breaks in the text which lead into 
>phantastickal passages; c) A view on world-history based on 
>conspiracy-theories, which - according to Robinson - transforms the text 
>into an alternate history novel. The textual proof Robinson gives for that 
>thesis is the
> V2 with Gottfried (btw, Gottfried is also 'God got fried', no?!) inside 
>that gets launched on GR's final pages. Well, first of all, there actually 
>was a Nazi space rocket with a boy inside, launched in order to fly to the 
>moon in the spring of 1945. (When this more recent research result entered 
>the media some years ago I posted some details plus a newspaper source here 
>under the title 'Rainbow Files: Fly me to the moon'). Like other scientific 
>projects - yes, the one on nuclear technology too ... - the people into 
>space travel tested the shit out of their stuff during the last months of 
>WWII before all the research facilities fell into the enemy's hand. The boy 
>in the rocket didn't reach the moon and died. Yes, Robinson couldn't know 
>about this detail of history in the early 1980s. But in the case of Pynchon, 
>who also seems to have had access to other details of the history of WWII 
>air technology not available for the general public at the time, I'm
> not so sure. Which brings me back to the question whether "Gravity's 
>Rainbow" does really contain SciFi elements. Personally I think that 
>Robinson's first two points (see 'a' and 'b') are basically correct but not 
>sufficient to actually speak of Pynchon bringing "several Science Fiction 
>agreements" into use. You may differ on this (anyone?). And the third 
>argument (see 'c'), apart from the fact that Pynchon did not really invent 
>the boy in the Nazi rocket, is not a solid one, imo. A real alternate 
>history novel needs a virtually real counter-history! Like Napoleon having 
>successfully conquered the world (see Louis Geoffroy: Napoléon et la 
>conquête du monde), or like the Southerners having won the Civil War (Ward 
>Moore: Bring the Jubilee), or like Lenin not having been let through to 
>Russia by train and thus having started the communist world-revolution in 
>Switzerland which then leads to a completely different run of history in the 
>20. and 21. century
> (Christian Kracht: Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten), or 
>like the axis-powers having won WWII (Philip K. Dick: The Man in the High 
>Castle). Nothing of that kind in "Gravity's Rainbow". There is no plausible 
>alternate history in the book. It's just a special point of view. 
>Weissmann/Blicero is - more or less - Wernher von Braun. He came into the 
>USA with the 'Operation Paperclip' which is not Pynchon's invention but took 
>place for real. Pynchon used this as a real-world-metonymy to deal 
>efficiently with totalitarian tendencies inside US-society during the times 
>of the Nixon administration. But an alternate history? How that?! Weissmann 
>and Gottfried hide on some Idaho potato-field for a quarter of a century and 
>then fire the rocket to Los Angeles? Or, as the text seems to suggest, the 
>rocket got launched already in 1945 and then flies around the earth for 
>twenty-five years before it descends? Come on! This superficial meaning is 
>just
> there to sew the novel's parts 3 and 4 together; it's not a serious 
>suggestion of an alternate history. And I actually think that "Gravity's 
>Rainbow" is - next only, in this regard, to "The Crying of Lot 49" - not as 
>SciFiesque as "V" or the later books after the break. Please do disagree!
>
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaLLxPtmyPI
>
>"Schlüssel auf SCHIESSEN," orders Blicero. 
>