BtZ42 Back to some basics: White Visitation

Sat Jun 11 09:14:50 CDT 2016

ST> Do you think there are non-parodic instances (endorsements?) [of]
rationalism in the book?

I distinguish between "rationalism" and "rationality" (or just "reason").
The former, with the "-ism" suffix, is an ideology or an implicit,
hegemonic program: that everything knowable is knowable through reason,
that the empire of reason is boundless, that every other candidate way of
knowing will/should be explained or explained away. The latter is a method
or collection of methods -- often animated with a faith that it can take us
very far, but without imperial certainty. Think "scientism" vs. "science,"
or Roger's rejection of Pointsman's insistence that there must be something
more than statistics to say -- more importantly, to *do* -- about the
scatter of V-2 impacts

With Schaub still at my elbow, I'm inclined to say that P "endorses"
nothing beyond person-to-person animal warmth, kindness and compassion,
with everything else organized in overlapping and cross-cutting ambiguities.

 https://lorenzduberry.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/joseph-cornell-copy.jpg

"His examiner...said severely: 'Baskerville, you blank round,
discursiveness is not literature.'
'The aim of literature,' Baskerville replied grandly, 'is the creation of a
strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.'"

On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 3:10 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Do you think there are non-parodic instances (endorsements?) rationalism
> in the book?
>
> On Jun 10, 2016, at 11:26 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thomas Schaub, *Pynchon: The Voice of Ambiguity* (1981), pp. 50-51:
>
> :The dreams and spiritualist visitations of the characters Feldspath,
> Rathenau, Blobadjian, and Bland are part of Pynchon's design to create a
> ubiquitous present which undermines the rationalist enterprises of
> Pointsman and the men above him. The imagery of their determinist schemes
> in *Gravity's Rainbow* -- ice, whiteness, now, gray skies, and
> pearl-colored London fog -- is embodied in Pointsman (whose place of work
> is 'The White Visitation') and his trained gray octopus Grigori, sent to
> the Riviera to do battle with the gaudy Tyrone in his Hawaiian shirt."
>
> [with the usual Davis caveat that while "determinist schemes" is fair
> enough, "rationalist enterprises" glosses over the important point that
> these enterprises -- however methodically conducted -- are *parodies* of
> rationalism. As previously noted,
>
> 1) the V-weapons were, per their German nickname, for vengeance rather
> than strategically or economically rational military effect
>
> 2) the belief in Slothrop's map (and the inference from it that
> understanding more about Slothrop might lead to a defense against the V-2)
> is based at least as much on faith and wishful thinking as on rational
> weighing of evidence
>
> 3) The actual state of Pointsman's Pavlovian neuroscience and psychology
> -- while adequate for manipulating a dog's salivation (or allegedly, an
> octopus' appetite and hunting behavior) -- falls absurdly short of the
> control of human behavior that's tossed about in the book's conversations.
> That extrapolation is, again, wishful thinking *in excelsis*.]
>
> On Thu, Jun 9, 2016 at 11:18 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The way I understand Pynchon's cosmology, white exists on an end of the
>> spectrum in the opposite direction of black. But really the spectrum is an
>> Ouroboric cycle. Perfect whiteness or blackness then are not only
>> realizations of the end of one direction of the spectrum, but are the
>> conditions of passage between. When the conscious mind glimpses something
>> powerful in the unconscious mind. When we approach death, er,
>> transformation.
>>
>> Perfect whiteness obviously the unification of all light--light before it
>> scatters into the differentiated colors of a rainbow, say.
>>
>> As whiteness approaches infinity, Slothrop's personal density approaches
>> zero. Or vice versa. I forgot which.
>>
>> On Jun 9, 2016, at 5:52 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> First, after we've just gone thru the 'race' chapter, the White means
>> whites, in its major meaning, right?
>>
>> vis·it·a·tion
>> ˌvizəˈtāSH(ə)n/
>> *noun*
>>
>>    1. *1*.
>>    an official or formal visit, in particular.
>>    -
>>
>>       <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+visit&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIHzAA>
>>       <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+survey&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIIDAA>
>>       <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+examination&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIITAA>
>>       -
>>
>>       <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+apparition&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIJDAA>
>>       <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+vision&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIJTAA>
>>       <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+appearance&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIJjAA>
>>       <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+manifestation&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIJzAA>
>>       -
>>       -
>>       2. *2*.
>>    a disaster or difficulty regarded as a divine punishment.
>>    "a visitation of the plague"
>>    synonyms: affliction
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+affliction&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoILDAA>
>>    , scourge
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+scourge&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoILTAA>
>>    , bane
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+bane&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoILjAA>
>>    , curse
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+curse&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoILzAA>
>>    , plague
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+plague&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIMDAA>
>>    , blight
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+blight&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIMTAA>
>>    , disaster
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+disaster&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIMjAA>
>>    , tragedy
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+tragedy&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIMzAA>
>>    , catastrophe
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+catastrophe&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoINDAA>
>>    ; More
>>
>>
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+punishment&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoINjAA>
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+retribution&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoINzAA>
>>    <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&biw=1301&bih=876&q=define+vengeance&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjOpZ3JyZbNAhWGGz4KHQ0SDIQQ_SoIODAA>
>>
>> And, in Catholicism at least, the visitation is what some call the
>> invitation and fact of visiting the family w the newly-deceased body in a
>> funeral home.
>>
>>
>> Acts of Visitation: The Narrative of J.M. Coetzee
>> <https://books.google.com/books?id=MvXLbOb49HYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=visitation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMh7GPyZbNAhWGWD4KHTCsCcM4ChDoAQhUMAk>
>>
>> <https://books.google.com/books?id=MvXLbOb49HYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=visitation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMh7GPyZbNAhWGWD4KHTCsCcM4ChDrAQhVMAk>
>> https://books.google.com/books?isbn=9401206945
>> María J. López
>> <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&sa=N&biw=1301&bih=898&tbm=bks&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Mar%C3%ADa+J.+L%C3%B3pez%22&ved=0ahUKEwjMh7GPyZbNAhWGWD4KHTCsCcM4ChD0CAhWMAk> -
>> 2011 - ‎Preview
>> <https://books.google.com/books?id=MvXLbOb49HYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=visitation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjMh7GPyZbNAhWGWD4KHTCsCcM4ChC7BQhXMAk> -
>> ‎More editions
>> <https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&safe=active&sa=N&biw=1301&bih=898&tbm=bks&q=editions:VJ1k9ss_gGwC&ved=0ahUKEwjMh7GPyZbNAhWGWD4KHTCsCcM4ChCYFghYMAk>
>> The seminal dimension of the categories of penetration and visitation is
>> highlighted, as these are shown to operate not only on a spatial level but
>> also on an epistemological, physical, psychological, hermeneutic,
>> metafictional and ethical ...
>>
>>
>
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