Chapter 5 Summary

[ish mailian]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-04/23/jpl-jack-parsons

On Saturday, April 16, 2016, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Strung into the Apollonian Dream": Pynchon's Psychology of Engineers
> Joseph Tabbi
> NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction
> Vol. 25, No. 2 (Winter, 1992), pp. 160-180
>
> On Saturday, April 16, 2016, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','ishmailian at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>
>> Weimar Culture and Futuristic Technology: The Rocketry and Spaceflight
>> Fad in Germany, 1923-1933
>>
>> Michael J. Neufeld
>>
>> Technology and Culture, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Oct., 1990), pp. 725-752
>>
>>
>> On Thursday, April 14, 2016, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The allusion to the Crystal Palace, London 1851, where technology was
>>> idolized is important. In The Education of Henry Adams, in the
>>> chapters that most influenced Pynchon,  Adams haunts the Exhibition in
>>> Paris, 1900. In 1876 the glass and iron hall of machines is in
>>> Philadelphia. Pynchon, of course, grew up not far from Flushing Meadow
>>> Park, where two Fairs were built, one on Gatsby's Valley of Ashes,
>>> 1939, and where, to this day, the rockets stand on exhibit. In the
>>> Swift books and in other boys adventure books the engineer was lauded
>>> as hero, magicians, high priests even. Back on the Kipling thread I
>>> mentioned Bridge-Builders, toss in Wells and Verne and countless
>>> others. Sure there were detractors too. Thoreau, Huxley & Co., and in
>>> film, Chaplin's Modern Times, in classics, Dickens's Hard Times...but
>>> the heroic builder was made part of the popular imagination and the
>>> wisdom of the day was that technological advancement brought progress
>>> to the world, to humanity and the men, almost exclusively men, who
>>> made engineers were heroes. To put on a spacesuit and jump in a rocket
>>> was daring and heroic act that made the world better. GE brought good
>>> things to Life.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 4:24 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
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>>
>>
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