Beyond the Rainbow

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 02.11.2011 15:40, Paul Mackin wrote:

> 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
>

Yes. I'm just trying to understand why there is, since VL, that change 
in Pynchon's writing about technology.


>>
>>
>> -----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.
>>>
>>>
>
>
>