Mind-Bending Science In Thomas Pynchon's Mind-Bending Novel Against The Day

[alice wellintown]

Did the early 20th C readers of Joseph Conrad call him a poet who
mines the sciences and the political sciences and so on to  set them
in a human context? Look to The Secret Agent, a novel that certainly
was mined by Pynchon, a novel that Conrad has written a good deal
about, and, like P, rejected the critical readings of, claiming, as P
does about science, entropy and so forth, that he has no knowledge of
these topics above what any intelligent person could not take from
books that are easy enough to read at the local library?Now, I have no
rue objection to calling P a poet, although he is not one, although,
he once considered the art, as he did the art of writing plays, a
profession he wished he might make a go at. We do not call Shakespeare
a novelist. Yes, the history of the form does, in an English manner,
spring from his plays some years later, but Avon Bill retired to
Stratford as an author of plays and poems. P is novelist. Nothing
wrong wiht that. In fact, if one can write as well as Pynchon does,
after GR, there is something very right about that. So why belittle
the profession. It is not rocket science. Not even poetry. It is
fiction. And,as the Sloth essay Mr P published and the Luddite essay
he published attest, an author, an author of some playful child of
American Romance, of Luddite Fictions, is not fit to sit at the Royal
Society Table. Well, he may not wear purplle, but he writes it better
than any Rocket Scientist, even if he must turn sour grapes into
purple, violet, and lime, prose.



On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 11:12 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Pynchon's achievement in Against the Day proves that he is peerless as a
> poet who can mine science for gems of insight and set them into the context
> of the humanity that is the ultimate concern of his novels."
>
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 10:09 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> This is cool. Thanks, Dave.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 1:38 AM, Prashant Kumar
>> <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Do read the comments as well. Monte and others point out a few
>>> infelicities in the presentation.
>>>
>>> P.
>>>
>>> On 10 August 2012 12:49, Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Thank you Mr. Monroe and THANK YOU Mr. White... a very helpful "primer"
>>>> for the woefully Science-Illiterate...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 8:39 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Mind-Bending Science In Thomas Pynchon's Mind-Bending Novel Against
>>>>> The Day: Part I
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.science20.com/adaptive_complexity/mindbending_science_thomas_pynchons_mindbending_novel_against_day_part_i-8804
>>>>>
>>>>> Mind-Bending Science In Thomas Pynchon's Mind-Bending Novel Against
>>>>> The Day: Part II - The Quaternion Wars
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.science20.com/adaptive_complexity/mind_bending_science_in_thomas_pynchons_mind_bending_novel_against_the_day_part_ii_the_quaternion_wars
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> www.innergroovemusic.com
>
>
>
>
> --
> www.innergroovemusic.com