Pynchon world-paranoia (?)

[Mark Kohut]

informative connective post and I just want to comment on
the occasioned by "fear and anxiety" part of the definition:
 
Fear is a pervasive word in ATD; once again, to me, perhaps
told more than embodied.....(moment with Webb's work; tommyknockers
as Fear embodied).
 
Is it harder to embody fear in a novel like AtD than in GR? No rocket
coming in always in our mind, among other things. First blush, answer seems
Yes. AtD TOO comic for feeling fear? 
 
Life is a State of Siege. Stated. THAT'S pretty fearful but.......................

From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 9:02 PM
Subject: Re: Pynchon world-paranoia (?)

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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