Gravity's Rainbow in depth on Studio 360

[Bled Welder]

What is a little nutty about having a pretty sympathetic view of anarchists?
Yes, there is such a thing as a conventional interpretation of history.  Off the top of the head: the U.S. does everything for the sake of peace.  In fact it's almost impossible for an American to disagree with that idea, so conventional is its wisdom--

> Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2012 09:19:56 -0500
> From: mackin.paul at verizon.net
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Gravity's Rainbow in depth on Studio 360
> 
> On 3/9/2012 6:03 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
> >
> > On Mar 9, 2012, at 3:17 PM, David Morris wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>  wrote:
> >>> On 3/9/2012 12:12 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> My thoughts are not facetious in the sense of any personal derision, I am trying to be intellectually feisty and to point out what I disagree with and why without intending any personal affront. I also hope for thoughtful rebuttal, because I want to look at the questions from different angles.  What I am trying to express with different formal approaches is a sincere problem with the logic of this line of thought that seems to me to be saying that Pynchon is using GR to challenge any  attempt  to understand comprehensive patterns in history, showing that all such attempts amount to paranoid delusions. Is that the gist of what you or Paul are saying or am I off?
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> Speaking for me, I don't think Pynchon is challenging more conventional interpretations of history at all--he's not some kind of nut.
> > Well I don't know what you mean by more conventional interpretations. That's pretty big and to my mind includes a lot of self congratulatory nonsense in praise of the dominant culture. Also Pynchon  seems at least a little nutty . I mean he chose Irwin Corey to represent him for a book award.. No photos. Takes a pretty sympathetic view of anarchists.  He is certainly emphasizing underrepresented aspects of history, and for better or worse has influenced my own understanding of history toward something many would find unconventional or at least minority. Is there really such a thing as a conventional interpretation of history, or is that idea only possible in an age of mass media?
> >>>
> 
> I meant actual historians as opposed to fiction writers--people attached 
> to university history departments, although there are exceptions.
> 
> Pynchon does sometimes act a little nutty but he's not a flake--he knows 
> the difference between historians and novelists, even genius ones, plus 
> he respects the right of each to exist and do their thing. (of course I 
> guessing on the latter)
> 
> P
> 
> >>> He's just being very imaginative in putting a huge amount of emphasis on certain aspects of reality--delusion, pornography, mercenary war profiteering.  It's his method. Don't know if the Greeks had a word for it--maybe it's part synecdoch, part hyperbole. I just say pynchonize.
> >
> >>>
> >>> P
> >>
> >> OK, to respond to this question (instead of your earlier rebuttal),
> >> despite the myriad of accurate and often obscure historical facts in
> >> GR, I think calling it an historical novel is to miss its real
> >> intentions.
> > I agree. I think history allows him to address the human reality and human consciousness in a grounded way, providing depth, texture, specificity, gravity. But he is also reevaluating WW2 with an alternate  or outsider POV reminiscent of Vonnegut, Heller, others.
> >> GR's main goal (amidst all of the beautiful everything
> >> else) is to dissect from as many angles as possible the nature of
> >> human consciousness.  In GR's world paranoia is not a pathology, or if
> >> it is, it is one inherent with the advent of human consciousness.
> >> Paranoia has its religious aspect: Is the "order" we see in the cosmos
> >> the product of an hidden power (and if so, why is it hidden?)?
> > The problem here is that we don't really see anything like a religious order in our cosmos, that way of seeing is culturally imposed and enforced by culture propaganda and violence. It's not so much a direct result of a  personal or group perception of an order in the cosmos.  The paranoid  aspects of religion seem to arrive at  that point where the myth and language and culture wars  becomes as powerful as common experience.
> >> Paranoia also means the act of making connections between data points,
> >> things seen into things perceived.  At the root of paranoia is the
> >> question, "Is what I'm seeing really there, or is it the product of my
> >> mind?"
> > Part of the issue here is the sharp duality inherent in the word. Paranoia as self delusion( its most common pejorative usage) is the untested, unexamined acceptance that the patterns perceived are really there.
> > It all hinges on whether you interpret 'para' as irregular/sick/delusional or  simply beside/alternate, doesn't it? Otherwise it can also mean an apprehensiveness based on limited data that may or may not indicate a real existing systemic pattern of abuse of power. This is how I tend to innately think of the word since in most words that use the Gk. root para it has no negative connotations.
> > Another ingredient of paranoia the way virtually everyone uses it  is fear.
> >
> >>   This is a question common to a person tripping on acid, which
> >> Pynchon clearly did plenty of in the 70's, reportedly while writing
> >> GR.
> > Truly so, but this question-"Is what I'm seeing really there, or is it the product of my
> > mind?" -is also a question which is essential to the scientific method.  Part of the power of my own psychedelic experiences was to reify, to make directly experiential the poetic beauty of scientific knowledge along also with dimensions of mind/spirit not obvious apart from altered states of consciousness.  Both enhanced sensory experience and analysis understanding seem to become very fluid and active and interactive in the altered state.  You see in a different way and it makes your mind change and you think in a different way and it affects your sensory perception and the boundaries between mind body inside outside become less definite.
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Another one of the foundational problems Pynchon points out with human
> >> consciousness (HC) is the knowledge of our impending, inevitable
> >> death, and all that is done in reaction to that knowledge (see the
> >> Busby Berkeley scene of the rats leaving their cages early on at the
> >> White Visitation: If only men could forget that they're going to die).
> >>
> >> And yet another foundational HC problem is the Freudian concept of
> >> "the Return of the Repressed," epitomized by shit being transformed
> >> into money, power, technology, etc.  Pynchon clearly read N.O.Brown's
> >> "Life Against Death" and incorporated much of it into GR.  The biggest
> >> question grappled with in that book is whether man is irredeemably
> >> repressed/pathological, or redeemable/healable.
> > fascinating topic. love to delve into that one more.
> >>
> >> Anyway, that enough for now.
> >>
> >> David Morris
> >
> >
> 
 		 	   		  
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