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

[Bekah]

The Secret Agent is a fine book - really good - funny, tragic, true.  That and Heart of Darkness are the only works by Conrad I've ever been able to get through.  

Bek

On Aug 10, 2012, at 10:33 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> 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