The Recognitions and V.

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/13/2011 6:31 AM, alice wellintown wrote:
> Paul is correct, again. For Adams, the Virgin was a force of
> fecundity. The American Puritan, ahamed of her power, covered her up;
> the Americans came to worship shit, money, and the word. The force of
> the Virgin, a mysterious force, a power eneffable, is a moral foce,
> but it is unknown to the Americans. This is the key to understanding
> Thomas Pynchon's works. I thought you guys got this. Damn.
>

Love ya, Alice.

P
>> It wasn't the Virgin's being virginal that Adams' admiration and maybe
>> Pynchon's too was based upon.
>>
>> The Virgin was a Goddess , whom the people virtually worshiped.
>>
>> It was one of the things people agreed upon, and were inspired by.
>>
>> It's true, Goddesses were traditionally virgins, but that was never their
>> main claim to fame.
>>
>> Just thought I  ought to put in a good word for Victoria Wren.
>>
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>   If there is a unity implied in V. it
>>> seems to me it is the illusory unity of the node of the v such as that
>>> of parallel lines intersecting at the horizon. The unity is only
>>> apparent to the readily deceived senses of one perspective, the lines
>>> do not in actuality meet, and everything continues as it always has,
>>> in dependence upon everything else, yet subjectively discrete, alien
>>> from any sort of integrated totality. And Malta? Malta echoes the
>>> knights for Pynchon, not the Goddess. It is the nexus of dynamic
>>> activity in the Med, though not causally related to any of its
>>> conflicts. It echoes the violence of the times, not their integrity.
>>>
>>> Of course, I must stick to my guns, too, about imputing intention to
>>> an author. Pynchon was brilliant, but young at the time he was writing
>>> V. He may have had only glimpses of the complexity evident in his
>>> later work; may have been drawn like an eye along those converging
>>> lines, still in pursuit of a unity the search for which he came only
>>> later to abandon. All this anti-lapsarianism may have more to do with
>>> my own delving into theism and paranoia as linked intuitive attitudes
>>> than with Pynchon's intentions, perspectives, or attitudes.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 12:14 PM, Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com>    wrote:
>>>> There is Malta as a still-strong echoic embodiment of Adams'
>>>> Middle Ages, the Virgin before the Dynamo.......
>>>>
>>>> Adams Virgin is one of the major meanings of V....and his
>>>> world, lost to Pynchon, as to Gaddis, is a thematic foundation, I say.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>>> From: Richard Ryan<himself at richardryan.com>
>>>> To: Ian Livingston<igrlivingston at gmail.com>
>>>> Cc: Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com>; pynchon -l<pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>> Sent: Sun, June 12, 2011 2:05:42 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: The Recognitions and V.
>>>>
>>>> While I would agree there's nothing in V to suggest a belief in a
>>>> prelapsarian paradise (as village culture, hunter gatherer societies,
>>>> whatever) - it also appears that Pynchon - at least the early Pynchon
>>>> - sees the centripetal forces of entropy and mechanization
>>>> *accelerating*; the depersonalizing, disintegrating aspects of human
>>>> history grow more and more ferocious as the powers of techno-violence
>>>> trend upwards - or downwards, as the case may be.
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Ian Livingston<igrlivingston at gmail.com>
>>>>   wrote:
>>>>> Hm. Do ya think? I haven't read The Recognitions yet, but V. seems to
>>>>> me to suggest that it has always been a fragmented world. Pynchon
>>>>> represents history as an Ariadne's thread through an ongoing
>>>>> Armageddon in which individuals seek ever more tenuous connections as
>>>>> complexity becomes more evident. The unifying element is memory
>>>>> itself, rather than recollection of a better unity.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com>
>>>>>   wrote:
>>>>>> Fragmentation and loss as the overarching meaning of the modern world.
>>>>>> Both.
>>>>>> Belief that the world was once unified and that that was/is felt as a
>>>>>> basic
>>>>>> Good
>>>>>> Thing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (Of course, other books, writers, too, I'm sure. Who?)
>>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
>>>>> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
>>>>> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
>>>>> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
>>>>> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Richard Ryan
>>>> New York and the World
>>>> ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
>>>> Thanks to all who saw VTM's new production!
>>>> "Brilliant!";"Superb!" - NYTheatre-wire.com
>>>> www.kingstheplay.com
>>>>
>>>>