pynchon-l-digest V2 #12854

[Mark Kohut]

OR, A character in White Noise suggests “all plots end in death”.

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 5:42 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

>  P said in Slow Learner that the writer has to come to terms with death in
> his writing or remain a juvenile. And, (most?) critics argue and the
> judgment of history (maybe?) sez, all GREAT books do--and as we all must
> ourselves or we can't even read them aright. BUT that the overarching theme
> of GR IS 'This One"-- death, death by rocket, does not mean all optimistic,
> positive Pynchonian values in GR have no existence. The Banana breakfast
> begins immediately. They are everywhere. The book is not a one note
> sledgehammer, we know; The book is not Nihilistic, as we've agreed, I
> think.
>
> I think the sentence shows Slothrop, a privileged, white,  military WASP ,
> is having the nation's fantasy about JFK under truth serum---as his
>  observations about blacks contain the nation's prejudices and stereotypes.
>
> Jack as Camelot-like President might have handled that buried "Excalibur"
> better,--pulled it out and thrown it in the lake (see the story
> variations)-- P implies and the story would have been different, esp
> regarding Nixon the Schlubb maybe. Seems Pynchon thought JFK started
> "kicking third-world people around" from the beginning.
>
> But if the Rocket was launched in WW 2, then THAT end will always be the
> rocket above the head. P sets up up that way; it is in symbolic form
> [Burke] not in actuality. Not yet in actuality.  (The doomsday clock of the
> Bulletin of Atomic Scientists did move back after GR was written.)
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 12:34 PM, Doug Millison <dougmillison at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> "Might Jack have kept it [the harp] from falling?"
>>
>> I would answer No, based on what the novel tells us in its third
>> sentence, "It is too late" and in its fourth sentence:  "[...] it's all
>> theater"  and other evidence in the novel. The System killed JFK and is
>> killing/will kill the rest of us, too - all we can do is wait for the final
>> rockets to fall.   See Gravity's Rainbow, Domination and Freedom by Luc
>> Herman and Steven Weisenburger for an excellent discussion of this and
>> other possibly optimistic readings of GR
>> http://www.amazon.com/Gravitys-Rainbow-Domination-Freedom-Herman/dp/0820345954
>>
>
>
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