That Pynchon's tropes are about real life

[Markekohut]

We all know the observational truism---might say cliche at this point--that angles, esp right angles, are, um, not optimally human, shall I softtalk it and that natural shapes and contours 
Are closer to, um, "the human" in his vision? 

anyway, from Jerome Kagan's summa of our scientific understanding of human development, The Human Spark, we can read this: ...." Infants only five months old display different brain profiles when observing the movements of people as opposed to the movements of objects."...

" Curvature is a third biologically privileged feature. Infants look longer at a circular than a straight contour and, after 8 weeks of age, stare longer at patterns composed of curved contours than at designs made of straight lines" [Single up them lines--MK].." Animals and plants have rounded contours, whereas most manufactured objects have straight contours. This fact--along with the observation that only animals and people move spontaneously and, unlike small objects, are neither " graspable" nor linked to one specific function [ singled up, linearized-MK] makes it easy for young children to differentiate between living and nonliving things. [ Ye old animate/inanimate fear of V]. 

" It is not surprising, therefore, that words or pictures that represent animals or people generate brain profiles that differ from those evoked by inanimate objects. Apparently, the brain treats
The contrasting categories living vs not living as significant."

P goes deep. 


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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l