Review of Gravity's Rainbow, Domination, and Freedom

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

 > I see that these two first-rate Pynchon understanders also found 
Fromm's ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM a very possible source, which I was lucky 
enough to know and be led back to.<

Why Fromm? Of all the Frankfurt School folks he was the one who actually 
worked as a psychoanalyst. His sociology, if one can speak of this, is 
hardly more than the rediscovery of the early - more 'humanist' - 
writings of Marx. Perhaps it's possible to say that Fromm's social 
psychology resembles in its diagnosis - "the necrophil character", "the 
marketing character" etc - some of Pynchon's artistic insights. But we 
shouldn't forget that psychoanalysis and psychotherapy are not 
trustworthy institutions in Pynchon's world. Just think of Dr. Hilarius! 
And it was Pynchon who coined the term 'shrink'. So I'm sceptical about 
Fromm being a source for Pynchon. Is there a proof he's read him? A 
library list? A letter?
To me it always seemed plausible that Pynchon - if he found inspiration 
in the Frankfurt School at all - got it from Theodor "of psychoanalysis 
nothing is true but its exaggerations" Adorno. In Adorno's sociology you 
find a mix of Marx and Weber which indeed looks similar to the social 
world as it is unfolding in Gravity's Rainbow. And the "dialectic of 
enlightenment" (Adorno/Horkheimer) can also be found in other books of 
Pynchon, especially in Mason & Dixon.
The earliest sign of the possible Pynchon/Adorno connection is chapter 
fourteen in novel numero uno: "V in love". Here Pynchon pictures the 
scandalous opening night of Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps, and he does 
this to exemplify the European decadence and death drive. The incident 
itself is well known, right, but in most history books this is just 
another art scandal in the wake of the avantgarde like there were so 
many around those years, also in music (--- when Alban Berg got his 
first works performed in Vienna, his teacher Schönberg, who sat in the 
audience, got slapped by furious visitors who were completely shocked by 
the music). But Pynchon chose Stravinsky's big one and perhaps Paris 
isn't the only reason for this. In Philosophy of New Music which got 
published simultaneously in Germany in America in 1949, Adorno draws a 
sharp distinction between Schönberg whom he connects to "progress" and 
Stravinsky whom he connects to "reaction". And this in a definitely 
political sense! Adorno's key words and sub titles for the work's second 
part about the reactionary Stravinsky are telling enough: 
"Intentionlessness and sacrifice", "Archaism, modernity, infantilism", 
"Permanent regression and musical gestalt", "The psychotic aspect", 
"Fetishism of the means", "Hebephrenia", "Catatony", "Dissociation of 
time", "Illusion of objectivism" etc pp.   And this is, in Adorno's 
theory as well as in Pynchon's novel, not just something aesthetic or 
marginal. Actually it's the prelude to the downfall of European 
civilization!
Well, OK, you might now say, but does Pynchon's text give us any hint at 
Adorno? It does, it does! In the chapter's last but one paragraph we 
read the following sentence: "ADORNED [emphasis added] with so many 
combs, bracelets, sequins, she might have become confused in this 
fetish-world and neglected to add to herself the one inanimate object 
that would have saved her" (p. 414). If (if ...) this is Tom's way to 
say "Hello!"  - Adorno still lived and read US novels when V got 
published  - and "Thank you!" to Teddie, there is a prominent model for 
this. In "Doktor Faustus" Thomas Mann says "Thanks!" to Adorno for all 
the help with the music by describing the particular sound of a musical 
motif several times with the phrase "Wie-sen-grund" (Wiesengrund = 
meadow ground), and Wiesengrund was the name - it's still visible in the 
middle initial W. - of Adorno's father. PKD read Doktor Faustus with 
great enthusiasm, and I could imagine that Pynchon at least heard about 
that book and the musical philosophy therein.


On 18.08.2014 19:36, Mark Kohut wrote:
> I see that these two first-rate Pynchon understanders also found 
> Fromm's ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM a very possible source, which I was lucky 
> enough to know and be led back to. I did a fair amount of posting 
> about and for it, I remember. started with the title.
>
> Although I haven't yet read the book, from the review summary, I think 
> they are wrong about how a few publishing years might have kept GR 
> from being published as is....Most of the " porno" charges had been 
> fought and won by publishers before the sixties, and a writer such as 
> Pynchon, at a House like Viking, with an editor like Cork Smith would 
> have published what he/they knew made thematic sense. They would have 
> loved, at publication (probably) to have had the book called " 
> pornographic as the Columbia Candlebrows overseeing the Pulitzer 
> judges/readers did.....
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Aug 18, 2014, at 11:11 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com 
> <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Martin Eve!
>>
>> https://pynchon.net/owap/article/view/114
>>
>> http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/gravitys_rainbow_domination_and_freedom 
>>

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