The Recognitions and V.

[Ian Livingston]

Well, I continue to disagree with Alice's reductionist approach to
Pynchon, and V. in particular, though it is a fair enough chord s/he
plucks, it is certainly not the only one admissible, given the text.
Still, as I said earlier, my reading of complexity, in which the
violence of history and the world's history of violence play a role in
the text, may well be merely what I bring to the reading. I'm okay
with that. No matter how I try, I cannot see V.W. reduced to the
archetype. Instead, I see her as a refutation, and satire, of the
contemporary attachment to the archetype.

On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 6:12 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
> 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
>>>>>
>>>>>
>
>



-- 
"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