Beyond the Rainbow

[rich]

not easy to speculate about things we'll pbly never know, but seems to
me that post-GR Pynchon wanted to develop or focus more on character,
at least the one he cared about, which depending on how you view it
was either sign of some sort of maturity or a misstep which left his
newer works very lopsided works indeed, heavy on dialogue, less poetic
rambling and whimsy, very bland bad guys.

He was obsessed by systems and conspiracy when a young man; he (and
the culture) moved along after awhile. what he replaced it with while
understandable, leaves many questions (at least for me)

rich



On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
<lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:

>
> 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.
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>