Chapter 5 Summary

[David Morris]

It's about whatever Pynchon portraying it to at the moment.

David Morris

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 3:24 PM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> What was an engineer or what was engineering when P was writing this
> book? I think that an engineer/engineering  had achieved somethings
> nearly miraculous, unprecedented and spectacular. At the same time,
> engineers/engineering may have pushed civilization to the brink of
> destruction. If they had or not, the accusation was commonly
> juxtaposed with the astonishment and wonder. The question is not one
> that many can answer, but it a question that all need to ask and,
> while we may not find an answer, we may at least come to a better
> understanding of the implications of the question. For like it or not
> we live in a world where engineering plays a essential role and one
> that is growing in importance.
> To see how engineering fits into Pynchon we need to tackle three very
> big ideas: Technology, Engineering, and Psychology. We are dipping
> into the Psychology, that is, of course, saturated with Freud and
> Brown, Marcuse....and Film. But we need to look into technic
> (Mumford's useful term, though P insists he never read Mumford prior
> to GR).
>
> Engineering, simply stated, is the application of pure science; a
> creative act, design. Is it about control? Or is it about creativity?
> Is it poetry?
>
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2016 at 8:17 PM, 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
> >
> >
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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