Chapter 5 Summary

[David Morris]

In other words, engineering is a control by man that isn't "natural." Which
implies that consciousness isn't natural. "Natural" would thus mean
unthoughtness.  Right?

On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 11:03 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Control by man is engineering.
>
> Control over natural forces, especially death, or other "outside" forces
> is taken "inside," engineered, controlled.
>
> The Wind is natural spirit. To veer against the wind is the rocket.
>
> David Morris
>
>
> On Tuesday, April 12, 2016, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "It's control. All these things arise from one difficulty: control. For
>> the first time it was *inside, *do you see? The control is put inside.
>> No more need to suffer passively under 'outside forces'--to veer into any
>> wind. As if......"
>>
>> Besides the control associations listed in Joseph's post, a Control is
>> the person the medium uses to communicate with, ---Selena I guess?  And
>> there is what The Firm is trying to do,* is doing* we learn here (but
>> not what yet)......now internalized? ????
>>
>> Wind, formerly secular to Roland, is now everywhere. Often a symbol of
>> spirit, the Spirit, in many religious uses....
>>
>> Eventyr is Norse for adventure, or fairy tale, ...Gloaming is that time
>> of day before dark....
>>
>> Another scene where Pynchon is always saying?: ...."more than in all your
>> philosophy" [science?], Horatio?" Even if fully ironic, as seems to be
>> Mann's use per Kai's post, it still sez here, people act as if there
>> is......
>>
>> it keeps the ambiguity of Both Sides of the epigraph as plot device
>> seesaw/fulcrum alive.
>>
>> And opens up interpretation as a metaphor, a synecdoche, a 'something
>> else' in meaning.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 1:17 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Here is a summary of key events in the chapter. Disagreements with
>>> anything?
>>>
>>> At the opening of Chapter 5( 30-38) we enter a seance conducted in some
>>> space of  SOE aka the Firm, a space lit by a sensitive flame in which a
>>> medium, Carroll Eventyr, seems to have entered the spirit of Roland
>>> Feldspath expert on control systems, guidance equations (a concept which
>>> haunts the novel in various forms: rocket
>>> guidance,determinism/calvinism/fascism/gnosticism ). Roland has "
>>> transected into the realm of Dominus Blicero”, but Roland gets distracted
>>> from Blicero by lights moving as in a  dance and  particularly by the  wind
>>> as a kind of ecstatic force he never knew. He calls out to his wife Selena
>>> ,who assures she is listening; he starts talking about the difficulty of
>>> control and  about replacing the invisible hand of the market  with self
>>> creating control, dispensing with God, then counters that this is only a
>>> more harmful illusion that A causes B when they are part of same….
>>> The seance is almost over as the sensitive flame that responds to sound
>>> and movement retreats then soars up as a new rocket falls  and Jessica
>>> Swanlake throws dart  which hits dead center .  Selena ,  the dead
>>> Feldspath’s wife is there. All is recorded by Milton Gloaming trying to
>>> develop statistical analysis of psychic and other events( death is the most
>>> frequent word he records). Jessica and Gloaming converse, he asks about
>>> Roger Mexico, her lover, who she says is with Pirate Prentice.  We move to
>>> conversation in Snoxall’s (pub,club?) between Prentice and Mexico; Prentice
>>> is more ambitious and more paranoid than first impression.  Mexico thinks
>>> the project with psychics is endangered by the revival of witch laws .
>>> Prentice is delivering microfilm to Mexico from Bloat. We find out about
>>> PISCES under the larger White Visitation. Pirate is concerned about the
>>> non-war/post-war related schemes arriving with the  Americans and obscuring
>>> Germany and war, thinks Mexico is being used in one such indecent plot,
>>> notes Mexico’s growing enthusiasm for microfilm being sent. Beautiful
>>> Jessica triggers Prentice's memory of affair with Scorpia Mossmoon, now
>>> long over. PP longing for real love, friendship, jealous of , but hoping
>>> Jessica and R M stay together. As chapter fades into maudlin with memory of
>>> Mossmoon’s inevitable departure Pynchon brings in the merry midgets but it
>>> falls a bit flat.
>>>
>>>
>>> We think of WW2 as a particularly modern and technological war and that
>>> gets much attention in GR, but from the start Pynchon is diving into a less
>>> respectable aspect of the pursuit of information. Psychic or paranormal
>>> phenomena . Why is it so prominent? We know it played a role in the war,
>>> but is it standing in for something larger in the Novel? In some ways it
>>> allows P to introduce nonstandard economic and political information into
>>> the War history. Is there more?-
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>
>>
>>
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