How seriously can we take what Pynchon is writing outside of his novels?

[Monte Davis]

IL>When we gaze in wonder into a forest ecosystem, for instance, is it the
science or the magic of it that elicits our awe?

"The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed is a delusion. …
Think you that a drop of water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of
water, loses any thing in the eye of the physicist who knows that its
elements are held together by a force which, if suddenly liberated, would
produce a flash of lightning? Think you that what is carelessly looked upon
by the uninitiated as a mere snow-flake does not suggest higher
associations to one who has seen through a microscope the wondrously varied
and elegant forms of snow-crystals? Think you that the rounded rock marked
with parallel scratches calls up as much poetry in an ignorant mind as in
the mind of a geologist, who knows that over this rock a glacier slid a
million years ago? The truth is, that those who have never entered upon
scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are
surrounded."

Herbert Spencer, 1855

On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 12:20 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hm. What is meant by "magic"? I incline to think of it as a sort of
> ascendency of meaning over fact--or maybe transcendence of meaning out of
> fact. But, then I have to wonder what is meant by "fact"--does fact refer
> to the perceptions of the 5 senses and extensions thereof (telescopes,
> microscopes, infrared, radio, accelerators, and so on)? Is reality what we
> think it is? If so, who, or what, is thinking? Does magic truly happen from
> outside of reality? or within it? Where do realms of possibility and
> impossibility delimit one another?
>
> Why should anyone who has spent a quantity of time researching the role of
> belief in psychological development and harmony want to discount magic? and
> is any weakness implied in celebrating the role of magic in the world
> people inhabit? When we gaze in wonder into a forest ecosystem, for
> instance, is it the science or the magic of it that elicits our awe?
>
> On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 4:13 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 1) I think P has blurbed a few burblers. Maybe he liked them, maybe not.
>> 2) I think he's serious about some kind of magic, but isn't sure if
>> it's serious, which is why I like it so.
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 10:22 PM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > The first question about the seriousness of what Pynchon writes outside
>> his
>> > fictions is akin to the question that was bounced through here recently
>> on
>> > how authors market themselves and the question "What is an Author?(
>> > Foucault's famous essay).
>> >
>> > The second question is more interesting to me. Is P serious about some
>> kind
>> > of Magic, countercultural Magic? I think so. One of the reasons I like
>> P.
>> >
>> > On Sun, Jan 17, 2016 at 6:07 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
>> > <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> My favorite example is the following paragraph from the Stone Junction
>> >> intro:
>> >>
>> >> "Stone Junction's allegiance, however, is to the other kind of magic,
>> the
>> >> real stuff---long practiced, all-out, contrary-to-fact, capital M
>> Magic, not
>> >> as adventitious spectacle, but as a pursued enterprise, in this very
>> world
>> >> we're stuck with, continuing to give readings---analog indications---of
>> >> being abroad and at work, somewhere out in it." (p. XIII)
>> >>
>> >> Apart from the fact that Stone Junction is a shitty novel, this sounds
>> a
>> >> little too enthusiastic to me. Was Tom high when he wrote it? The words
>> >> "all-out, contrary-to-fact, capital M Magic" stuck to my mind the very
>> first
>> >> I read them, though. And some of the more positive characters in
>> Pynchon's
>> >> work - think of Geli, or of Sortilège - seem to be pictured as if they
>> >> actually have magical respectively psychic powers. Maybe Pynchon really
>> >> believes in "capital M Magic." So I'm not sure about this, neither
>> about the
>> >> particular passage nor about the problem in general.
>> >>
>> >> How seriously can we take what Pynchon is writing outside of his
>> novels?
>> >> Discuss!
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> "Magic is a means of re-opening metaphysical possibilities,
>> re-enchanting
>> >> the world, that counters the loss of possibilities lamented by
>> Cherrycoke
>> >> and documented throughout Mason & Dixon. Magic is thus a form of what
>> >> Pynchon in Gravity's Rainbow calls "counterforce," something that
>> opposes
>> >> the dominant cultural forces of decadence and entropy. It functions
>> both as
>> >> a metaliterary trope for the fictional processes that lead to recovered
>> >> metaphysical potential and as a metaphor for the attempts of characters
>> >> within the narrative to re-enchant their worlds. This re-enchantment
>> is,
>> >> however, partial and fragmentary in that it results in ambiguous
>> pockets or
>> >> islands of possibility within a larger context of politico-economic
>> >> domination and manipulation. Magic in Mason & Dixon takes the form
>> primarily
>> >> of feng shui, kabbalism, and magical signs or sacred glyphs. It can be
>> >> both(,) black magic, investing history with a sense of malevolent but
>> >> otherworldly conspiracy, and white magic, granting aspects of
>> America('s)
>> >> tentative hope and lyric beauty." (Jeffrey Howard: The Anarchist
>> Miracle and
>> >> Magic in Mason & Dixon. Pynchon Notes 52/53, 2003, pp. 166-184, here
>> 176.)
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
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