The ugly truth of science

[Monte Davis]

Alice, I am very happy to accord you - and everyone here -- the authority
earned by well-reasoned, persuasive posts.

 

I accord rather less to dozens, hundreds of posts that are (1) extended
quotations with little or nothing of the poster's own thought, or (2) brief,
delphic, "playful" provocations, which the poster - if called on it - then
denies, "forgets," claims to be bored with, or turns into "you've got a
stick up your ass." The latter, hit-and-run style is virtually diagnostic of
trolls.

 

Believe it or not, I've never thought about any other (real or fantasized)
grounds for your authority until very recently. Nor had it ever occurred to
me to sketch my own background and experience. It's you who got that going
with your very own claims that you're a science person, married to a famous
scientist, prepared to kick my ass in the science ring, blah blah blah.

 

Cut that crap, Alice, and we'll get along fine.

 

Our own scuffles aside, beginning a few weeks ago with the renewed
discussion of Pynchon's "Luddite" essay and Snow's "The Two Cultures," I've
been trying in good faith to articulate and support a proposition of my own:

 

That while Pynchon's work does embody, reinforce and advance the
"literary/humanist" culture's critique of science and technology (something
very well explored in millions  of words of Pynchon criticism and here on
the list).

 

There is also throughout his work much more evidence of familiarity with
S&T, much more weaving of scientific and technological ways of thinking into
all his voices - not just those surrounding a Nefastis, Hilarius, Pointsman,
Mexico, Mason, or Vanderjuice -- than can possibly be explained as
"Menippean  pseudo-erudition" or "Boy oh boy, he really knows his targets
[the better to blow them away]." That evidence and that weaving get stronger
over the years: it's weakest in the short stories, and I'm happy to take
Pynchon at his word (in the SL introduction) that he fumbled entropy. It's
you (not he) who talks about the use of integral calculus in TSI - perhaps
because he knows he not only didn't fumble it there , but would run if for
multiple touchdowns in GR.

 

I have offered evidence of that familiarity and weaving in his words on the
page. I believe it is largely ignored in [my very limited knowledge of] the
critical literature and in discussions here. I'd like to know what's up with
that. And I speculate that the very longevity, breadth and depth of the
literary/humanist culture's critique of science and technology creates an
"occupational disability" or "learned incapacity" to see anything *but* that
critique in Pynchon. especially if the evidence suggests any positive
valence for S&T at all. 


*

 

Now: it's not terribly responsive or interesting when you post another few
score quotations from others expounding how Pynchon's work embodies,
reinforces and advances the critique-i.e., exactly what I stipulated above,
and have stipulated all along. I'm after other game: might he be doing
something else, too? (Or is that just too threatening? And if so, why?)

 

Nor is it terribly responsive or interesting to caricature what I say,
throwing up the same straw men again and again: that Pynchon is a scientist,
that one needs to be a scientist to appreciate his writing, etc. Neither I
nor anyone else here has said or implied that. 

 

Cut that crap, Alice, and we'll get along fine. 

 

Let's revisit one specific point. Do you agree that Pynchon's books combine
elements of (1) history-book history, (2) more or less plausible history
that might have happened without making it into the history books, and (3)
"secret history" with a strong conspiratorial flavor. along with quite a lot
of outright fantasy? Certainly a shitload of scholarly and critical work has
gone into discriminating among those:  e.g., tracking dates and places of
Tyrone's odyssey in GR, cross-tabbing them with Christian and pagan holy
days. exploring what Pynchon's Tchitcherine does and doesn't share with the
historical Soviet diplomat, usw. And certainly a lot of criticism then uses
those discriminations in interpretation.

 

Now. I have never seen you deny that some small amount of historical
knowledge about, e.g., WWII eases the way for even the casual reader of GR
(fewer pauses to flip through Weisenburger, at the very least). And I have
never seen you attack the many Pynchon critics who have found deeper
familiarity with history - even some fresh research on occasion - helpful in
finding and understanding less obvious connections and patterns. In fact,
you've quoted some of those critics at length,  again and again (and again).

 

But when I did exactly that in the case of AtD's Tesla. when I used both
history and my own (by no means deep or "elect") familiarity with electrical
science and theory to discriminate between (1) the historical Nicola Tesla,
(2) his plausible but unproven/unproveable claims, and (3)/(4) the
batshit-crazy "Tesla's suppressed world-changing inventions" meme and
Tunguska "connection" that peek into the book and bubble along in pop
pseudoscience to this day. 

 

And worse, suggestied that it might matter to our understanding of what
Pynchon's saying about science, technology, capitalism, and utopian dreams.

 

You got your panties all in a wad, and felt compelled to repeat four times
in 16 hours that none of that is or could be interesting or significant --
and oh yes, had I still not noticed that Pynchon is a novelist and not a
physicist? 

 

Cut that crap, Alice, and we'll get along fine.

 

And a happy Father's Day and belated Mother's Day to you, as well as a
perpetual Digital Alter Egos' day to yours.

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