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

[alice wellintown]

Note:

a nt times article on conrad; conrad, of course, was read by the
unibomber, a maniac once conflated with Pynchon. But P does not live
in a cabin, is not full of sour graped fury, not living like a bitch
named wanda under a bridge, but is a new yorker. that science is a
target of his works may fly over the heads of many science and math
readers who hope to find a great mind they can communicate with, but
there it is.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/books/review/11reiss.html?pagewanted=all


On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 2:13 PM, alice wellintown
<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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