Beyond the Rainbow

[Paul Mackin]

On 11/2/2011 9:55 AM, eburns at gmail.com wrote:
> It's "how we learned to stop worrying and love the bomb."
>
> I still fail to see how anyone could see this as a "problem" in GR.

Perhaps the word was not used in the sense of a complaint, misgiving, or 
objection, but rather as a question to be considered and solved. ( or 
even left unsolved)

P
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: kelber at mindspring.com
> Sender: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 09:53:23 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
> To:<pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Reply-To: kelber at mindspring.com
> Subject: Re: Beyond the Rainbow
>
> I don't think the fetishization is unconscious - it seems a crucial element in the book.  The eroticization of violence, always present, exemplified by the reported Rita Hayworth pin-up on the Hiroshima bomb, must have been a contributing factor - probably the main theme - that inspired Pynchon to write the book.  I agree with Kai that the V-2 is the real protagonist of the book.  Maybe GR is the story of it's erotic awakening?
>
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: eburns at gmail.com
>> Sent: Nov 2, 2011 9:33 AM
>> To: Kai Frederik Lorentzen<lorentzen at hotmail.de>, owner-pynchon-l at waste.org, pynchon -l<pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Subject: Re: Beyond the Rainbow
>>
>> "By such an anachronism Pynchon intentionally avoids the (unconscious)
>> fetishization of destructive up-to-date technology, which might have
>> been the problem with GR."
>>
>> The problem!? That's the best part!!
>>
>>
>> Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen<lorentzen at hotmail.de>
>> Sender: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 14:26:55
>> To: pynchon -l<pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Subject: Beyond the Rainbow
>>
>>
>> The problem with GR might be, that the Rocket is the novel's master
>> significant, so to speak. You could also say that inside the
>> international socio-technical network in the final days of WW II Pynchon
>> pictures, the V2 takes the role of the main protagonist. While we lose
>> Slothrop along the way, the Rocket stays with us from first to last
>> page. And although Pynchon, there's no question about this, is
>> intentionally writing furiously against the military-industrial complex,
>> the book's high level of poetic energy also results from Pynchon's
>> fascination, even obsession with destructive hightech air engineering.
>> The novel ascribes to the Rocket "a Max Weber charisma" (p. 464), but
>> for Weber charisma is strictly personal. This can, of course, be read as
>> satire, but I think those critics who spoke re GR of "the technological
>> sublime" were right. So were the readers who considered it to be a
>> 'cyberpunk' manifesto. From the perspective of Pynchon 2 (the one since
>> VL), Gravity's Rainbow thus may appear to be infected by the
>> avantgarde's fascist involvement with techno-rapidity, especially in
>> Italian Futurism, which gets dissed in AtD. And that's, imo, the reason
>> the question of technology is played down in VL by making a simple
>> pistol the crucial weapon of the book. Do also note that the the balloon
>> travels of the Chums of Chance are, inside the historical timespan of
>> AtD, already a little anachronistic. New and fresh such a setting was
>> around 1800 when narrations like "Des Luftschiffers Gianozzo Seebuch" by
>> Jean Paul appeared on the market.
>> By such an anachronism Pynchon intentionally avoids the (unconscious)
>> fetishization of destructive up-to-date technology, which might have
>> been the problem with GR.
>>
>>