Chabon on BE (SPOILERS regarding BEER)
Heikki Raudaskoski
hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi
Mon Oct 21 11:02:01 CDT 2013
I agree, those references are there.
However, I'm thinking of the dynamo/idyll motifs introduced by Auerbach in
his savvy review of BE. According to Auerbach, Deseret/hashslingrz make
the dynamo and DeepArcher the idyll in BE. Compared to BE, the preterite
are much more involved in the tension between the corresponding dynamo and
idyll motifs in, say, TCoL49 or GR, IMO. Auerbach does not explicate them
but I'd say that in TCol49, these motifs are Inverarity's will/W.A.S.T.E.,
and in GR, the Rocket/the Zone.
On Mon, 21 Oct 2013, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
> Yes, you've said that before but that doesn't make it right! In the
> first chapter we meet "scavengers with huge plastic sacks full of empty
> beer and soda cans head for the markets to cash them in" (p. 2), and the
> second chapters takes us to Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where we
> hear about the "Perejil Massacre" and meet people who "talk a
> combination of Kreyòl and Cibareno" and have to make a living by selling
> souvenirs to tourists, which includes "practitioners of voodoo and
> SanterÃa with spells for sale" (all quotes from page 16). So these two
> groups of the preterite - the homeless and third-world people in tourist
> regions - are introduced early in the novel, and I'd suggest we follow
> the issue closely instead of making general judgments now.
>
> On 20.10.2013 23:47, Rich wrote:
> > As I've said before Pynchon has left preterite somewheres
> >
> >
> >
> > On Oct 20, 2013, at 3:21 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com
> > <mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> >> It is an analogy, and only one of many possible zones. Not that I
> >> espouse this kind of zonal paradise. It just seems Pynchon repeated
> >> model.
> >>
> >> On Sunday, October 20, 2013, Rich wrote:
> >>
> >> But what good is it if only accessible by the well connected (haha)?
> >>
> >> Hardly a paradise, no?
> >>
> >> rich
> >>
> >> On Oct 20, 2013, at 2:22 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I think DA is supposed to be internet Zone, anarchy, a place w/o
> >>> rules or rulers. Pynchon Paradise. What is it "for?" Wrong
> >>> question. What for do you want to make it?
> >>>
> >>> David Morris
> >>>
> >>> On Saturday, October 19, 2013, John Bailey wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Yeah, I'm a bit confused about DeepArcher too... as far as I
> >>> can tell,
> >>> it's a program lodged in the deep web, which as you say is
> >>> basically
> >>> the "place" where IP addresses aren't connected to DNS so
> >>> won't show
> >>> up on any search engine, and you need a direct link or
> >>> knowledge of
> >>> the specific IP address to access it.
> >>>
> >>> So that kind of makes sense - DeepArcher is a program with
> >>> Second
> >>> Life-like aspects that can't be accessed unless you have the
> >>> key. And
> >>> later on the security of the fortress is compromised, and
> >>> then the
> >>> gates are just thrown open and it basically leaves the Deep
> >>> Web and is
> >>> accessible from the surface.
> >>>
> >>> What I really don't get is what the *hell* the program is for. A
> >>> Second Life that only a handful of people can get into? And
> >>> do what?
> >>> The descriptions of Maxine's early journeys around the place
> >>> make it
> >>> seem like a point-and-click adventure game with no mystery
> >>> to it or
> >>> reason to play further. Except it has stunning graphics, for the
> >>> era...
> >>>
> >>> At first I thought it was a navigation system for travelling
> >>> through
> >>> the Deep Web but that doesn't really seem right, since it would
> >>> basically be a search engine with graphical interface for
> >>> finding the
> >>> IP addresses of places that aren't meant to be findable.
> >>> Which would
> >>> be exactly the thing that would pose a threat to the entire
> >>> meaning of
> >>> the Deep Web, even if you could erase your footsteps the way DA
> >>> promises.
> >>>
> >>> Anyway, maybe that's the point - that this supposedly subversive
> >>> method of total anonymity itself provides the architecture
> >>> for control
> >>> and surveillance and some sweet home shopping.
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Michael Bailey
> >>> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> >
> >>> > On Oct 19, 2013 7:09 PM, "Monte Davis"
> >>> <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Chabon is careless there. Ernie's capsule history is not
> >>> *historically*
> >>> >> baseless: yes, DARPA did fund some of the IT research
> >>> leading to TCP/IP
> >>> >> and
> >>> >> packet switching. And yes, the Cold War justification for
> >>> that funding
> >>> >> *was*
> >>> >> to develop a network technology that could "work around"
> >>> servers knocked
> >>> >> out
> >>> >> by enemy attack, so that government could keep communicating.
> >>> >>
> >>> >
> >>> > One of my other favorite authors, John Crowley, in _The
> >>> Translator_
> >>> > made the female protagonist's dad a darpa dude and evoked
> >>> those times
> >>> > wonderfully.
> >>> >
> >>> > If we were gonna get crazy and do a non-p group read like
> >>> we did a few yrs
> >>> > back - I guess I finally thought of the one I'd suggest (-:
> >>> >
> >>> > But getting back to BE, I sort of have a question about
> >>> this deep web where
> >>> > Deep Archer resides - does that correspond to anything
> >>> nonfictional? I mean
> >>> > are we talking about using a browser to navigate to some
> >>> bare IP address
> >>> > known not to dns at all but only to the cognoscenti? Afaik
> >>> there were bbses,
> >>> > ftp and gopher, and then all of a sudden there was yahoo
> >>> and aol and urls
> >>> > but nowhere was there anything like deep archer which is
> >>> sophisticated,
> >>> > ambiguous - nothing like the games I'm aware of - plus
> >>> it's more and less
> >>> > than a game, possibly even a place that responds to users'
> >>> emotional and
> >>> > spiritual states of mind and even a place where a person
> >>> can be said to
> >>> > reside while accessing it. Maybe a mmorpg or a Second
> >>> Life type
> >>> > environment?
> >>> >
> >>> > A development of the angelic realms alluded to at the
> >>> beginning of Vineland
> >>> > and the amazing things computers - the ideal readers with
> >>> the ideal insomnia
> >>> > - can do with mere 1s and 0s by stringing enough of them
> >>> together.
> >>> >
> >>> > Also on a different note a compare/contrast between Maxine
> >>> and March, Maxine
> >>> > having the annointing (though somewhat revoked) to do a
> >>> little something
> >>> > about fraud while March is more a John the Baptist voice
> >>> in the wilderness -
> >>> > strictly speaking there's no real need to say they
> >>> represent stances that an
> >>> > author could take in depicting a social scene, but if a
> >>> choice like that is
> >>> > evident in BE, it seems to me Pynchon - whose Sistine
> >>> Chapel, Gravity's
> >>> > Rainbow, could be described as more March-like - i
> >>>
>
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