Pynchon, Time, Science: de Bourcier

[Ian Livingston]

Yes. Thanks for the heads-up, Monte.


On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 8:58 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> 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.
>
>
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