Saure Trauben der Mathematik

[Mark Kohut]

I wasn't going to go there but you are more courageous, I guess. Maybe in a very curious, genius way, he wanted a math 
degree under Conrad's injunction: "In the destructive element immerse."  Studying it formally, hands-on, would 
help him feel all his tropes and perspectives. Like going to sea to get that right. 
 
Since being a writer was with him from his youth and his vision is of a piece, hedgehog-like (in Berlin's sense). But, that early,
yes, he was still pushing the meanings of that vision in new directions so................
 
Since he seems to have liked his Cornell experience, this 64 event might have fed the creation of Candlebrow U on paper
too? 
 

From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 6:09 AM
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.....
>
>
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