Pynchon, Time, Science: de Bourcier

[Joseph Tracy]

Intriguing reference. Sounds to be worth a go.
On Jun 24, 2013, at 10:08 AM, Monte Davis wrote:

> I’m halfway through a first reading of Simon de Bourcier’s Pynchon and Relativity: Narrative Time in Thomas Pynchon's Later Novels
>  
> http://www.amazon.com/Pynchon-Relativity-Narrative-Pynchon%C3%A2-Continuum/dp/1441130098/
>  
> which will be out in paperback in November.
>  
> It’s tough going, closely argued and dense with reference to other Pynchon studies, to pomo literary theory of hi/story and narrative, and to the science and metaphysics of time (and popularizations of both) in 1890-1920. But it really repays the effort. If you’re interested in what P is doing with time (and transcendence of time) in AtD and M&D – e.g. why some escapes from time take you to the Land of the Dead, while others take you to grace, the uncorrupted Gnostic radiance of light itself – you’ll think more clearly about it, and get more from the books, if you read this. I’m already convinced that Zoot’s time machine, Zombini’s _Doppiatrice_, and the Rideout & Bounce Integroscope aren’t just three casual bits of techno-tomfoolery: each is linked to a distinct tradition of scientific, metaphysical, and popular thought about time.
>  
> A sample:
>  
> The lecture given by Minkowski at the F.I.C.O.T.T. at Candlebrow is evidently a version of his address to the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians at Cologne in September 1908 (Minkowski 73-91). This is clear from the conversation between Merle Rideout and Roswell Bounce after the lecture, which they have some difficulty in following because it is delivered in German:
>  
> After everybody else had left the hall, Roswell and Merle sat looking at the blackboard Minkowski had used.
>       'Three times ten to the fifth kilometres,' Roswell read, 'equals the square root of minus one seconds. That's if you want that other expression over there to be symmetrical in all four directions. '
>       'Don't look at me like that,' Merle protested, 'that's what he said, I've got no idea what it means.'
>         'Well, it looks like we've got us a very large, say, astronomical distance there, set equal to an imaginary unit of time. I think he called the equation "pregnant."'
>       'Jake with me. He also said "mystic."' (AtD 458)
>  
> The section of Minkowski's lecture they are referring to appears in its published translation thus: “the essence of this postulate may be clothed mathematically in a very pregnant manner in the mystic formula 3.105 km = (sqrt -1) secs.” (Minkowski 88)
>  
> Pynchon refers specifically to Minkowski's use of blackboard and chalk (AtD 458), alluding to a playfully lyrical passage in the original lecture:
>  
> “With this most valiant piece of chalk I might project on the blackboard four world-axes. Since merely one chalky axis, as it is, consists of molecules all a-thrill, and moreover is taking part in the earth's travels in the universe, it already affords us ample scope for abstraction; the somewhat greater abstraction associated with the number four is for the mathematician no infliction.” (Minkowski 76)
>  
> --
>  
> Of course, if you think science in Pynchon is all pseudo-erudition, the better to hold down a whipping-boy, then the many close correspondences that de Bourcier highlights between details of Pynchon’s books and details of articles and lectures and books by Minkowski and Weyl and Einstein, Bergson and James and Whitehead, are just so many remarkable coincidences.