Back to AtD....Tungaska Event, [in late 700s pages]

[bandwraith at aol.com]

Don't have the text in front of me, but your
reaction to that part of it reminded me of
my initial attempt to figure out what P was
getting at with the description of temporary
magical happenings post-Tungaska. The
description of animals- wolves- temporarily
granted the power of speech, walking into
to church, up to the alter, and quoting chapter
and verse, in particular, amused me, and
made me think of more human predators-
wolves in sheep's clothing- who prey on,
and manipulate their flocks, for their own
selfish purposes, especially in times of
great tumult.

Of course, with the oblique reference to
Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, any
attempt at seriousness is seriously
compromised. It's as if the event has
somehow ripped the very veil of artifice
between author and reader- what passes
for the fabric of space/time in a work of
fiction- and gives license for a barefaced
wink and a nod. This is not Toto pulling
away the curtain, or Oedipa talking to the
director/planetarium projector through
the swirling steam of the shower. Rather,.
it is the recognition of a completely
random event- which could happen again
at any time- and could lead to any
number of new evolutionary develope-
ments, such as the one that led to us.

It's also Feynman on a grand scale. He
never made it to Tuva, but we have. Time
to kick back, light up a bone with the
author, and just groove on the miracle
of it all, with an eye out for those wolves,
of course.


-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
To: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sat, Mar 31, 2012 8:48 pm
Subject: Re: Back to AtD....Tungaska Event, [in late 700s pages]


Wonderin' if you could elaborate on those wolves a bit.
On Mar 31, 2012, at 2:55 PM, bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

> Partial to wolves speakin' The Gospel, myself.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> To: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sat, Mar 31, 2012 1:37 pm
> Subject: Re: Back to AtD....Tungaska Event, [in late 700s pages]
>
>
> Seems like the essence of the "word"  that explodes their world is 
something
> along the lines of' 'you are on a ball in space, vulnerable, open to 
the
cosmos,
> wake up from the limits of your mammalian bodies, your territorial 
wars, your
> boys adventure stories." It happens at a time when  science is the 
new common
> global language, close on the heels of Einstein's publication of 
theories that
> made gravity vanish, based on thought experiments of the motion of 
particles
of
> light through space, ideas that will bring new explosive dimensions 
to the
word
> 'atomic' and 'enlightenment'. It happens at a time when the events 
can be
> understood in a non superstitious way.
>
> I feel in general Pynchon is pointing out that humans more easily 
achieve a
> change of information than a change of consciousness or  mammalian 
habit. That
> despite all the promise of cultural transformation burgeoning in 
western
> civilization at the turn of that century, the habit of war exercised 
enough
> gravitational pull to bind Europe in the bloody mud graves of WW1 and 
aerial
> flames of WW2.
>
> Hot year coming up.
>
>
> On Mar 31, 2012, at 7:36 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
>> p. 793 The Tugaska Event reveals "the sacred City".....
>> the Chums "took longer to understand that the great burst of light
>> had also torn the veil separating their own space from that of the
>> everyday world"......they had met the same fate as Shambala,
>> their protection lost"...
>>
>> ..."gravity itself for a moment simply vanished"
>>
>> All textual clues to the immateriality of the Event...
>>
>> The Event = like a religious Visitation revealing the sacred?
>> Like the Pentecostal Word exploding above everyone's heads?
>>
>> Essay question: How is the Tungaska Event, therefore, similar
>> and dissimilar from the Rocket in GR?
>