BtZ42 Section 9 (pp 53-60): at the window while he sleeps

Tue May 17 09:53:42 CDT 2016

I submit that the fear, suspicion, and satire are directed not at
determinism -- or at science -- but at the ambition for control over other
people and over the course of history.

On p. 56, Pointsman frets almost hysterically about Roger: "in his play he
wrecks the elegant rooms of history*, threatens the idea of cause and
effect itself... is it the end of history?" Is that Pynchon's own
mini-seminar in the philosophy of science, or science and society? Or is it
the voice of someone interested and invested in Slothrop as a step toward
predicting or averting the V-2s -- something his government paymasters want
very much, even if it means vivisecting Tyrone?

The portentous "end of history" is just parodic Henry Adams dressing for
"My funding, my career prospects, and maybe even my Nobel Prize depend on
showing that there's a meaningful pattern to V-2 impacts, and something
that can be done about them... and Mexico is denying it!"

* Himmler-Spielsaal, anyone?

On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 7:37 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that in GR Pynchon 'fears' the too-logical determinism of science.
> Fears (and investigates) that supposed determinism. Allows thru Roger and
> in other ways---The Counterforce?---a possible 'escape" while
>
> Yes, he satirizes everything, everything....esp maybe in GR and AtD.
> Fully,
> totally, mind-bogglingly, in a hard to find a footing way....
>
> On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 6:30 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Does P fear science? I doubt this is a supportable thesis. He
>> certainly doesn't condemn it. Nor do all creative souls. So, Monte is
>> making a point with sarcasm. What point? That foxes and dogs.....?
>> Science, along with nearly all other institutions of power, of western
>> culture and history, is subjected to P's satire. So, BTW, is art,
>> religion, philosophy, mathematics, psychology, history, linguistics,
>> statistics, Chemistry, economics, physics, biology, philology,
>> anthropology....and so on. All are satirized with the conventional
>> weapons of the satirist. For example, the obsession with The Book, is
>> conventional. So much that P does in GR is not novel. The Book, the
>> obsession with the Rocket, the quest...etc. One conventional strategy
>> of the satirist is mock erudition. P loves this tool and uses it
>> brilliantly. He also makes use of the satirist's cranks and hysterical
>> characterization. He loves parodistic encyclopedism.
>>
>> As Kharpertian says, pp. 108-109, it
>>
>> exposes all explanatory codes as partial, problematic, or repressive,
>> and the rejection of the monological nature of such autonomous codes
>> leads to radical fusion and fantastic alternatives.
>>
>> A Hand to Turn the Time the Menippean Satires of Thomas Pynchon
>>
>> Theodore D. Kharpertian
>>
>> Kharpertian goes to school on decades of Pyndustry publications and,
>> in a dense and clear style, shows how the ideas of V. and CL49 are
>> combinesd in P's masterwork.  Not the first to recognize P as
>> satirist, more specifically, Menippean Satirist, but a fine work,
>> dense and clearly composed. Easy to read.
>>
>> But we know all this so....
>> On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 9:52 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Monte writes:
>> > 58.24: "Pointsman’s... his... a bleakness whenever she meets him.
>> > Scientist-neutrality." How does that differ from Roger's commitment to
>> the
>> > data and only the data about rocketfalls, which was only recently "cheap
>> > cynicism"...? Or is Roger's version of neutrality less creepy to her
>> > *because* it makes him uncomfortable even as he insists on it? NB he
>> > repeatedly, parodically *plays* the mad scientist in exchanges with
>> her. If
>> > I didn't know that Pynchon fears and condemns science like all good
>> creative
>> > souls, I'd think there's some quite interesting ambivalence being
>> modeled
>> > here.
>> >
>> > There IS a good mini-essay here on science and Pynchon in GR), which
>> Monte
>> > might write. Focussing leads me to offer
>> > THIS possible reading: Roger believes that there might be SOMETHING
>> > ("magic") beyond the "scientific", beyond the measurement of material
>> > reality. ( One might be reminded of Oedipa's "something beyond the
>> visible"
>> > or not).
>> >
>> > Pointsman has no such belief. His science-neutrality is really a
>> > positivistic belief in nothing but science.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, May 15, 2016 at 11:50 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> end of P. 57 -> P. 58
>> >>
>> >> Foxes and dogs again, among the latter a painted pointer "alerted by
>> the
>> >> eternal scent, the explosion over his head always just about to come."
>> Good
>> >> boy, Tyrone!
>> >>
>> >> http://www.old-print.com/mas_assets/full3/J5141807/J5141807448.jpg
>> >>
>> >>
>> https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/43/02/f0/4302f06cbc44b3b2e6fbc371f51b2bce.jpg
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> What makes these images -- standard English fare at the time  for
>> exurban
>> >> bourgeois as well as country-house aristocracy -- "even more autumnal,
>> >> necropolitical, than prewar hopes"..? This section has reminded us
>> before
>> >> and will remind us again that Roger & Jessica's evasion  of the war is
>> >> temporary and precarious -- but here we're told that golden autumnal
>> meadows
>> >> are *becoming* a City of the Dead (necropolis). Just a _memento mori_
>> for
>> >> the lovers, for a nostalgic English self-image? More?
>> >>
>> >> 58.11-15: something blocks Roger's speech, and "how does she know... so
>> >> exactly what Roger meant to say?" (Reinforcing 56.37's "Roger really
>> wants
>> >> other people to know what he’s talking about. Jessica understands
>> that.") A
>> >> hug, melting into arousal for both, is more than a consolation prize
>> for
>> >> "failure to communicate" -- it *is* communication, "mind-to-mind."
>> >>
>> >> 58.16 brings us back to the framing night of winter solstice. Perhaps
>> the
>> >> clinch just above was earlier the same night -- the section began with
>> >> "pillows in front of the fire. Roger’s clothing... scattered all
>> about." Or
>> >> perhaps all their nights here are one, off the timeline and off the
>> books.
>> >>
>> >> 58.24: "Pointsman’s... his... a bleakness whenever she meets him.
>> >> Scientist-neutrality." How does that differ from Roger's commitment to
>> the
>> >> data and only the data about rocketfalls, which was only recently
>> "cheap
>> >> cynicism"...? Or is Roger's version of neutrality less creepy to her
>> >> *because* it makes him uncomfortable even as he insists on it? NB he
>> >> repeatedly, parodically *plays* the mad scientist in exchanges with
>> her. If
>> >> I didn't know that Pynchon fears and condemns science like all good
>> creative
>> >> souls, I'd think there's some quite interesting ambivalence being
>> modeled
>> >> here.
>> >>
>> >> 58.33: "And the people who might have been asleep in the empty houses
>> here
>> >> . .., are they dreaming of cities that shine all over with lamps at
>> night,
>> >> of Christmases seen again from the vantage of children and not of sheep
>> >> huddled so vulnerable on their bare hillside, so bleached by the Star’s
>> >> awful radiance?"
>> >> Spoilers be damned, this is a sweet foretaste of the Advent evensong
>> >> coming up three nights from now (p. 127)
>> >>
>> >
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
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