Chabon on BE (SPOILERS regarding BEER)
Fiona Shnapple
fionashnapple at gmail.com
Mon Oct 21 15:32:11 CDT 2013
And, as Henry Adams, Maxine, I think, though the intensity of
information focused on her eye is, like the X-ray Adams describes in
his Education, brighter, and speeding away, into chaos, a flood, I'm
not sure if her world, our world, is more or less mysterious.
On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com> wrote:
> A wonderful essay.
>
> Mr. Pynchon writes “polyphonic palimpsest histories,”
>
>
> AND
>
> “palimpsests” are unafraid of knowledge—of history, of science, of
> religion—and strive to “stretch our intellectual, spiritual and
> imaginative horizons to breaking point.”
>
> AND
>
> "he prefers to set his characters up as charged particles and send
> them hurtling out of a cyclotron"
>
> AND
>
> "Patterning micro-chaos into macro-order requires a large canvas
> before the macro-order can emerge."
>
> AND
>
> "The linear plot masks its far greater sprawl"
>
> AND
>
> Notably for the author and for noir, this PI is a woman.
>
> AND
>
> While I disagree about the secular Jewish UWS Maxine, the contrast
> with March is key and correct.
>
> Maxine is Henry Adams.
>
> Great Essay.
>
> On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Heikki Raudaskoski
> <hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi> wrote:
>>
>>
>> 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
>>> Santería 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
>>> >>>
>>>
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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