Chapter 5 Summary

Wed Apr 13 21:07:12 CDT 2016

Control being taken inside is a way to describe the progress of the
internal guidance of the rocket.  It is guided internally now, not by
external fins that balance thrust against/into lateral winds.  I don't know
V-2 science, but I think internal guidance controls were its breakthrough.

David Morris

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 12:44 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> I guess it depends on what you mean by "consciousness."  I was riffing on
> "control being taken inside," as opposed to working in conjunction with
> nature ("veering into the wind," in this metaphor).  Freeing one's self
> from gravity, as well.  Essentially dominating nature as a symptom of an
> insecurity, something animals don't suffer from.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 11:02 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>> I don’t see how consciousness equates to engineering?  As to whether
>> engineering is natural, when a bird builds a nest is it natural?
>>
>> What seems particularly unique to me about human engineering is the
>> externalization of memory, the externalization of technologies of recording
>> knowledge, information, imagination. Then there is how that feeds into the
>> engineering of war and culture.
>>
>> The question of how Pynchon treats consciousness itself is challenging,
>> but we do see in Slothrop a backward momentum away from the modern control
>> based culture where he starts.
>>
>>
>> > On Apr 13, 2016, at 12:16 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > 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
>> >
>> >
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
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