911 Prewarning

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

/How about discussing the issue in relation to Pynchon's work?

Not that he knows the answers re 9/11, but neither do we, so ...
/--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Against_the_Day_and_September_11

*9/11 in Against the Day*

On roughly pages 138-155 of /Against the Day/, the Lovecraftian 
narrative about a mysterious power dug up from the ice bears numerous 
parallels to the events of 9/11:

Page 145: "even reaching the depot would prove an Odyssey. For the 
streets were in mad disorder"

Page 148: "the bad dream I still try to wake from, the great city 
brought to sorrow and ruin"

Page 151: "they'd been warned, repeatedly, about just such a possiblity. 
The city more and more vertical, the population growing in density, all 
hostages to just sich an incursion."

Page 151: "a story taken so for granted that its coming true was the 
last thing anybody expected"


    Against the Day & the Controlled Demolition Hypothesis

It has been suggested that the following excerpts might allude to the 
Controlled demolition hypothesis 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center> 
for the collapse of the WTC:

Page 85: "some of these explosions, the more deadly of them, in fact, 
were really set off to begin with not by Anarchists but by the owners 
themselves."

Page 175: "Only slowly would it occur to his ultra-keen detective's 
reasoning that these bombs could have been set by anybody, including 
those who would clearly benefit if "Anarchists", however loosely 
defined, could be blamed for it."

(...)


    9/11 and Pynchon's other works

*Gravity's Rainbow*
The poem/song that appears on the final page of the book contains an 
image that takes on new meaning post-9/11:

    /There is a Hand to turn the time,/ 
    /Though thy Glass today be run./ 
    *Till the Light that hath brought the Towers low* 
    *Find the last poor Pret'rite one...* 
    /Till the Riders sleep in ev'ry road,/ 
    /All through our crippl'd Zone./ 
    /With a face on ev'ry mountainside/, 
    /And a Soul in ev'ry stone/... 

(...)

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