Saure Trauben der Mathematik

[Mark Kohut]

I am taken in my reading emphasis how that GR line 'about a Victorian kid of Brain War' which does use some real but rare intellectual history is 
reprised at greater length in AtD where the comparison to religous wars now becomes overt....... 
 
 
 

From: Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>
To: 'Paul Mackin' <mackin.paul at verizon.net>; pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 12:41 PM
Subject: RE: Saure Trauben der Mathematik


More than that, there’s simply too much knowledge and understanding of science and math woven into the books to be credibly ascribed to “they wouldn’t have me, so I’ll show the world what a sick crew of Poklers and Pointsmen they are.” 
 
That line in GR about a “Victorian kind of Brain War, as between quaternions and vector analysis in the 1880s,” is a neat distillation of some real and important if arcane intellectual history. It’s as far from the mostly superficial set-dressing of physics in The Big Bang Theory as it’s possible to get. And it reveals a fascinated interest, not just snark. (Of course Pynchon’s genius for Baedeker research – making us feel he knows a place and time deeply with well-chosen, idiosyncratic details, even if he then asserts as in  Slow Learner that he was handwaving it all – is at work in his science, too.)
 
How far would one get around here saying “Webb Traverse reveals Pynchon’s hostility and suspicion towards the labor movement and popular insurgency” or “Frenesi shows us that Pynchon agrees with Plath that every woman adores a fascist,” or “Slab indicates Pynchon’s disdain for post-impressionist visual art”..? Yet quite similar inferences are frequently drawn about his view of science and technology, to sage nods all around.
From:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of Paul Mackin
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 11:46 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Saure Trauben der Mathematik

On 7/31/2012 11:17 AM, Matthew Cissell wrote:
And I thought i was the only one thinking along those lines.

The theory does have a certain something going for it, but does it really make sense that his early and continuous success as a novelist was insufficiently-ego-building as to render him seriously affected by a relatively petty rejection.  Can't imagine the actual acceptees wouldn't have been tickled pink to exchange places with the Pyncher.

To me it just don't hold water.

P




ciao
mc

From:Kai Frederik Lorentzen mailto:lorentzen at hotmail.de
To: Mark Kohut mailto:markekohut at yahoo.com; pynchon -l mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 12:09 PM
Subject: Saure Trauben der Mathematik



Me thinks there's an autobiographical dimension in this. After the publication of V Pynchon wanted to add a math degree to his literature BA. But in 1964 "Pynchon tells friends he has recently been denied admission to an undergraduate program in mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley", as it says in the Chronology of the Cambridge Companion. So the making fun of math plus the fact that "P has math given up by main characters in order to live" in AtD are oozing an aroma of sour grapes.   


On 31.07.2012 00:47, Mark Kohut wrote:
  From imaginary numbers on in AtD, mathematics is another trope 
>about our self-alienating distance from the physical world, certain values to live by, other human relationships' meanings and more, I submit.
>
>
>I know no one else is rereading at the moment but from memory or when you do, make the case for higher-level math in ATD that is
>not part of the ridicule?  I can't see it. 
>
>
>It is no accident, as Ian observed and as the verbal footfall of a finished argument, that P has math given up by main characters in
>order to live...Yashmeen so clearly it is almost heavy-handed, imho, yet in his way, TRP encodes tons of nuance (as usual) entertaining us
>with his theme.....
>
>