TP and Nabakov doing SF that isn't

[Mark Kohut]

This misc. post deserves to be part of Matthew's thread about TRP's possible reading/influence of (a) Nabokov (story).
 
I will preface it by quoting someone who said of Ben Jonson's praise of Shakespeare--"a man (writer) for all times" that
one reason was he was so much OF his time........as the scholars have kept documenting over 400 years....in his language,
hidden politics of the time allusions, allusions---sometimes just a reworked phrase or three from books published in his life--
Florio's Montaigne, etc.............
 
Now, I have been browsing in that edition of The Nobel Savage in which "Under the Rose" appeared and, I admit i'm a bit
touched re TRP but I think I am not out of touch with most of reality yet......and here are a couple very interesting things.
One, the Nixon hate, the Nixon jabs by Bellow and less famous editors under the column name Arrias are extensive....
I men tioned one.....soon another in part two, hating him way back for his McCarthy pandering start...another in which the writer 
remarks almost gratuitiously---this is 1961--that at least Nixon was beaten...........
 
OK, this builds the case for how much certain very important writers like Bellow, surely his circle, friend Ralph Ellison, lotsa other intellectuals and all liberals  musta felt about Nixon.........TRP entered a strong tradition soon after....and kept it going thru Inherent Vice....
 
Then, there is a short story (by one Charles Simmons) which in the first paragraph has giggling late teen girls, that can very obliquely
to the Pynchon-touched echo the young giggling sisters in Mason & Dixon--with a later allusion in ATD, maybe.....okay, okay......
 
Then there is an essay by one John Mccormick, on German reading habits?!---who, if it is the same guy is an unfamous
 but absolutely terrific critic/reader/academic--- whom i discovered via a discarded library book, as he, like Alice and Tony Tanner read with natural subtlety and uniqueness some currentat the time American writers....
and in the Noble Savage essay, the  The Princess Cassimassima is mentioned--"who in Germany has read it?," he asked..who would have
asked that about that novel of anarchism?....and immediatlely after segues to the new Director of Krupp---"that triumphant cartel that
no court, Allied or German was able to crack" ---a quote......[Director says when asked that he does not read...and McCormick remarks we 
have to adapt to a man who has more power in his little finger than any Proust-reading American General. ]
 
I think we could assume TRP might have read every word of such an influential magazine that published his story, yes? I mean, he
probably got two free copies?!?.....
 
 

From: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
To: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 5:56 AM
Subject: TP and Nabakov doing SF that isn't

Some days ago I mentioned Adam Roberts treatment of TP and asked how people felt about categorizing TP as SF. Someone (sorry, I don't remember who) mentioned that at the time it looked like SF that was being done in the so-called New Wave period (Female Man, Crash, etc).

I'll throw in on that now. Without explaining my view in great depth let me say that what TP has done strikes me as a way to write SF without it looking very SF. I don't equate SF with robots and gizmos (as someone said), but for many people robots and spaceships are a big part of SF. In TP the rocket stands in for the spaceship as the automaton stands in for the robot (i'm sure someone must have made this point before, but you'll forgive my ignorance). THis is a thought in the back of my mind when I read TP.

The other night while trying to read myself to sleep I picked up my collection of Nabakov short stories (Penguin "Collected Stories") and started one that I had somehow missed the first time through. At the end of the collection is a piece called "Lance". (Please forgive me if this well known to you good folk or has been posted before in some way.) On the second page I read the following (a long quote but worth it if you don't know it):

I not only debar a too definite planet from any role in my
story-- from the role every dot and full stop should play in my
story (which I see as a  kind  of  celestial  chart)--  1  also
refuse  to  have anything to do with those technical prophecies
that scientists are reported to make to reporters. Not  for  me
is  the  rocket  racket.  Not  for me are the artificial little
satellites that the earth is promised; landing  starstrips  for
spaceships  ("spacers")--  one,  two,  three,  four,  and  then
thousands of strong castles  in  the  air  each  complete  with
cookhouse  and  keep, set up by terrestrial nations in a frenzy
of  competitive  confusion,  phony  gravitation,  and  savagely
flapping flags. Another  thing  I  have  not  the slightest use for is the
special-equipment business--  the  airtight  suit,  the  oxygen
apparatus--  suchlike  contraptions. Like old Mr. Boke, of whom
we shall hear in a minute, I am eminently qualified to  dismiss
these  practical  matters  (which  anyway  are  doomed  to seem
absurdly impractical to future spaceshipmen, such as old Boke's
only son), since the emotions that gadgets provoke in me  range
from  dull  distrust  to  morbid  trepidation. Only by a heroic
effort can I make myself  unscrew  a  bulb  that  has  died  an
inexplicable death and screw in another, which will light up in
my face with the hideous instancy of a dragon's egg hatching in
one's bare hand. Finally,  I  utterly  spurn  and  reject so-called science
fiction. I have looked into it, and found it as boring  as  the
mystery-story  magazines-- the same sort of dismally pedestrian
writing with oodles of  dialogue  and  loads  of  commutational
humor. The clichиs are, of course, disguised; essentially, they
are  the  same  throughout all cheap reading matter, whether it
spans the universe or the living  room.  They  are  like  those
"assorted"  cookies  that differ from one another only in shape
and shade, whereby their shrewd makers ensnare  the  salivating
consumer  in  a  mad  Pavlovian  world where, at no extra cost,
variations in simple  visual  values  influence  and  gradually
replace flavor, which thus goes the way of talent and truth, 

Now how many things can you find that make you think of TP? More importanly it was published in 1958 (while VN was still teaching at Cornell) in "Nabakov's Dozen", when TP starts writing. Might this have been part of the fertile ground that allowed the seed to take root and grow? Whaddya tink?

curious mc
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