Saure Trauben der Mathematik

[Monte Davis]

More than that, there's simply too much knowledge and understanding of
science and math woven into the books to be credibly ascribed to "they
wouldn't have me, so I'll show the world what a sick crew of Poklers and
Pointsmen they are." 

 

That line in GR about a "Victorian kind of Brain War, as between quaternions
and vector analysis in the 1880s," is a neat distillation of some real and
important if arcane intellectual history. It's as far from the mostly
superficial set-dressing of physics in The Big Bang Theory as it's possible
to get. And it reveals a fascinated interest, not just snark. (Of course
Pynchon's genius for Baedeker research - making us feel he knows a place and
time deeply with well-chosen, idiosyncratic details, even if he then asserts
as in  Slow Learner that he was handwaving it all - is at work in his
science, too.)

 

How far would one get around here saying "Webb Traverse reveals Pynchon's
hostility and suspicion towards the labor movement and popular insurgency"
or "Frenesi shows us that Pynchon agrees with Plath that every woman adores
a fascist," or "Slab indicates Pynchon's disdain for post-impressionist
visual art"..? Yet quite similar inferences are frequently drawn about his
view of science and technology, to sage nods all around.

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Paul Mackin
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 11:46 AM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Saure Trauben der Mathematik

 

On 7/31/2012 11:17 AM, Matthew Cissell wrote:

And I thought i was the only one thinking along those lines.


The theory does have a certain something going for it, but does it really
make sense that his early and continuous success as a novelist was
insufficiently-ego-building as to render him seriously affected by a
relatively petty rejection.  Can't imagine the actual acceptees wouldn't
have been tickled pink to exchange places with the Pyncher.

To me it just don't hold water.

P



 

ciao

mc

 

  _____  

From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen  <mailto:lorentzen at hotmail.de>
<lorentzen at hotmail.de>
To: Mark Kohut  <mailto:markekohut at yahoo.com> <markekohut at yahoo.com>;
pynchon -l  <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org> <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 12:09 PM
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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