GR translation: across a clear skirmish-line from the Force

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 11.07.2012 15:20, Monte Davis wrote:

> The "yes"es seem to me a repeated affirmation: she's ready IN SPITE of
> imminent disaster, IN SPITE OF anyone who may be watching. Also, for readers
> of Big Encyclopedic Novels in English, surely a nod to Molly Bloom's "yes I
> will yes" sexual soliloquy at the end of Ulysses.
>
> The Force? Opposed to the (much more frequently named) Counterforce of
> slackers, dopers, and  mindless pleasure-seekers,  the Force is the book's
> big bad They: everything that rules, controls, dehumanizes. The best clue is
> the only capitalized reference to it I know, on p. 639 (Penguin pb), where
> Dodson-Truck is thinking of Nora:
>
> "In recent weeks, in true messianic style, it has come clear to her that her
> real identity is, literally, the Force of Gravity. [italics] I am Gravity, I
> am That against which the Rocket must struggle, to which the pre-historic
> wastes submit and are transmuted to the very substance of History . . . ."
>
> But wait: isn't the Rocket itself emblematic of inhuman lunar-Nazi dreams of
> transcendence (not to mention death and destruction here and now)? If the
> Force is bad, a-and the Rocket struggling against it is also bad...???

Perhaps this intermediated contradiction (as one would call it in the 
dialectical tradition) can also be found in the novel's title. The evil 
force contains its own overcoming: /Gravity's Rainbow/. In case we 
consider gravity to be the "big bad They" there are, I think, 
connotations of original sin and the fall of man. If so, "Gravity's 
Rainbow" is a paradoxical religious formula. And maybe it's interesting 
in this context to realize that --- in the continuity of Pynchon's work 
--- the last word of AtD ("grace") is followed by the title "Inherent 
Vice" which is not only an insurance-technical term but also, again, 
refers to the fall of man, which would make the whole transition between 
the two novels a mirror of the title GR: /Rainbow's Gravity/.


>
> Good question. "[Oedipa] had heard all about excluded middles; they were bad
> shit, to be avoided; and how had it happened here, with chances once so good
> for diversity?"
>
> Or: http://writeonill.org/masondixon.htm
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
> Of Mike Jing
> Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 8:48 AM
> To: Pynchon Mailing List
> Subject: GR translation: across a clear skirmish-line from the Force
>
> P222.2-13   ...her skirt is pulled up in back, the bare bottoms of her
> thighs, marked red from the train seat, turn toward him . . . yes . .
> . in the imminence of disaster, yes, whoever's watching yes. . . .
> "Leni, where are you?" She was at his elbow not ten seconds ago.
> They'd agreed beforehand to try and keep together. But there are two sorts
> of movement out here-as often as the chance displacements of strangers,
> across a clear skirmish-line from the Force, will bring together people
> who'll remain that way for a time, in love that can even make the oppression
> seem a failure, so too love, here in the street, can be taken centrifugally
> apart again: faces seen for the last time here, words spoken idly, over your
> shoulder, taking for granted she's there, already last words-
>
> First, how should I interpret the three "yes" in " yes . . . in the
> imminence of disaster, yes, whoever's watching yes. . . ."?
>
> Second, what is "the Force" in "across a clear skirmish-line from the
> Force"?
>
>
>


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