Pynchon world-paranoia (?)

[Bled Welder]

You're right I was going to look up all the clinical, pro-definitions of all the terms too.
I'd also like all the times the author uses the word paranoia or thereof in all his work, especially Gravity.  You mentioned once you searched an online version, where is that?

> Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 21:02:48 -0400
> Subject: Re: Pynchon world-paranoia (?)
> From: michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> 
> the history of the word "paranoia" probably is worth tracing...
> 
> there's probably a lot more to be said than this -
> \http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia#History
> 
> (of which the primary feature noted in paranoia is "systematic
> delusion" - and here's what surprises me: "even at the present time, a
> delusion need not be suspicious or fearful to be classified as
> paranoid")
> 
> in V. we have, "Cavities in the teeth occur for good reason,
> Eigenvalue reflected.  But even if there are several per tooth,
> there's no conscious organization there against the life of the pulp,
> no conspiracy.  Yet we have men like Stencil, who must go about
> grouping the world's random caries into cabals." (162, Harper
> Perennial Modern Classics paperback edition 2005)
> 
> so from a clinical view, the main thing is delusion not discomfort,
> but the feeling that used to creep over me when in a group of
> weed-puffers so that I was noticeably more wary, nervous, on-edge, was
> chiefly NOT clinically paranoid, but that is how I referred to it -
> and to that feeling when I noticed it in others...and "paranoid" came
> to mean-- and I'm pretty sure this is what it meant in common parlance
> to a lot of people -- excessive caution acted out in ways that were
> often humorous
> 
> Like Doc and Sauncho in the grocery store buying all that stuff to
> cover up any suspicion that one thing they were buying to use on their
> weed might be incriminating...
> 
> so their delusion that they were being watched is paranoid?
> 
> but their worried feeling and their actions were not - they were something else?
 		 	   		  
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