Target city and greenhouse

[Mark Kohut]

I have never made the Notes from the Underground connection directly
either, so thanks, Monte and
I will add this:

The representative underground man in his rants, kicks and punches against
rationalism says somewhere
something like I'll believe 2 plus 2 equals 5 if I want.

I suggest Pynchon's vision in GR is to say, even if 2 plus 2 is clearly
4.....that rational truth can be used
in a massivily irrational way by far more than one underground man, in fact
by whole societies of above
ground supposedly rational leaders.

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 5:37 PM, Thomas Eckhardt <
thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:

> Am 18.03.2016 um 16:22 schrieb Monte Davis:
>
>
>> http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/can-dostoevsky-still-kick-you-in-the-gut
>>
>> I take it as given that P. knew his Dostoyevsky, and that both the glass
>> breaking overhead (while Pirate/the bombed/Jews/all preterites fail to
>> escape *far below*) and the maybe-about-to-break glass of the *sky-lit,
>> rooftop* greenhouse are deliberate remappings of the spaces in "Notes
>> from the Underground."
>>
>
>
> "Notes from the Underground" is a favourite book.
>
> A very fine article by Denby:
>
> "What if our own interest, as we construe it, consists of refusing what
> others want of us? That motive can’t be measured. It can’t even be known,
> except by novelists like Dostoevsky. Reason is only one part of our
> temperament, the underground man says. Individualism as a value includes
> the right to screw yourself up."
>
> Of course, the underground man not only "says" it. He rants -- and beneath
> the rant he screams, kicks and punches -- against rationalism.
>
> In the course of it he invents modern man.
>
> Similar psychological insights can be found in Poe. The only writer of
> that period comparable to Dostoevsky, however, for me is Melville.
>
> Certainly Michel Houellebecq knows "Notes from the Underground" by heart.
>
> As regards the link to GR via the Crystal Palace, I have to admit that I
> never made the connection. Thanks.
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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