Chapter 5 Summary

Wed Apr 13 22:47:38 CDT 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph-npS29n9Q

On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 10:07 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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