Was Pynchon influenced by Leary, R.A. Wilson?

Tue Aug 29 11:16:38 CDT 2017

Just the deep, dark and delicious richness of the multi-disciplinary
metaphorical bank from which Pynchon dips, and the breakneck pace of
the whiplash narrative quick-change acts... and stuff.

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On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 12:07 PM, Seymour Landnau
<seymourlandnau at gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh I get it, the Illuminatus is to be read by readers in training to read
> the Rainbow.
>
> What is it about the Rainbow that is explained or prepared for by these
> other writers?
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 10:25 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> It also should have crossed your mind that the training wheels comment
>> relates to the reader, not the writer. Nobody is saying RAW and Shea
>> were Pynchons manque'. It's just that Illuminatus could rightly be
>> seen as one of those books--along with Phil Dick, and/or William
>> Gibson, and or Neal Stephenson--that a READER grapples with on the way
>> to being able to handle Gravity's Rainbow.
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 10:20 AM, Seymour Landnau
>> <seymourlandnau at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > It crossed my mind that somebody, including me, especially me, might go,
>> > "You think Inherent Vice is transcendent and sublime?"  Well, no.  I'm
>> > not
>> > talking about those books, I'm talking about the main three.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 9:13 AM, Seymour Landnau
>> > <seymourlandnau at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> What's annoying about "Pynchon with training wheels" is the absurd and
>> >> noxious suggestion that transcendent writing like Pynchon's can be
>> >> learned.
>> >> That with training you can wheel with the wizard.  You can't nobody
>> >> can.
>> >> Whether you believe that his consciousness comes from tiny flashes of
>> >> light
>> >> bopping about in his brain, or is channeled from a sixth dimensional
>> >> Arcturan, anybody with half a brain would agree that whatever it is it
>> >> is
>> >> "god given".
>> >>
>> >> What makes the writing "divine" isn't its erudition, or the way it
>> >> juggles
>> >> vast concepts across the spectrum of human understanding with life's
>> >> terrors
>> >> and joys and everyday minutiae.  It's the singular(ity!) way it, the
>> >> writing
>> >> I mean, the way it, what's that word that describes the way you sort,
>> >> of,
>> >> string words together, in a way, how do you say, that's pleasing but,
>> >> but
>> >> what's more, is, it is, what's a word, what's a word, sublime.
>> >>
>> >> Nobody learns how to be sublime.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 4:49 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
>> >> <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> To me "Gravity's Rainbow with training wheels" sounds like a pretty
>> >>> good
>> >>> description of Illuminatus!
>> >>>
>> >>> The last year in school all the cool people were reading it (in
>> >>> translation). We made music, played theater, took a lot of drugs. And
>> >>> Shea &
>> >>> Wilson (whose other books like Prometheus Rising or Cosmic Trigger
>> >>> were also
>> >>> read at that time) provided a reference frame and introduced us to
>> >>> authors
>> >>> like Lovecraft, Crowley and also Joyce. A-and It took just a couple of
>> >>> months before I read my first Pynchon, which was Gravity's Rainbow in
>> >>> translation ...
>> >>>
>> >>> So don't speak ill of Robert Anton Wilson!
>> >>>
>> >>> While Leary was certainly an ambivalent figure with a number of issues
>> >>> (by this I'm not saying that he doesn't have merits in psychology and
>> >>> the
>> >>> early psychedelic movement),  Wilson always appeared rather likeable
>> >>> to me.
>> >>>
>> >>> Whether Pynchon is actually "influenced" by the writings of Leary
>> >>> and/or
>> >>> Wilson (here this could only be the case regarding Pynchon II), I do
>> >>> not
>> >>> know. His writing simply takes place on a higher level.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Am 28.08.2017 um 10:52 schrieb Mark Kohut:
>> >>>
>> >>> Your " clearly" can't even be proven from what we know and, of course,
>> >>> what most want to believe. And as if his habit of making
>> >>> "cross-disciplinary
>> >>> connections"--wtf is THAT in him besides metaphors-making genius,
>> >>> praised
>> >>> from Aristotle on as the highest kind of " intelligence".
>> >>>
>> >>> All of the annotating and criticism exploring P's creative sources and
>> >>> jackshit re these guys.
>> >>> He is too smart for all of them. Which is one reason THEY admire him.
>> >>>
>> >>> Wtf is that list in your post, from " music scale" to "control"? Seems
>> >>> to
>> >>> me like a"junior-grade Pynchon" list satirizing literary criticism.
>> >>>
>> >>> "Junior-grade Pynchon" per that commenter means it is effectively a
>> >>> joke,
>> >>> bad Pynchon parody.  Or else like Shakespeare retold for kids.
>> >>>
>> >>> A--and, I think you've got the dark web in BE about as wrong--although
>> >>> again his ambiguous depth of symbolic use is not easily summarized--as
>> >>> can
>> >>> be.
>> >>>
>> >>> Sent from my iPad
>> >>>
>> >>> On Aug 28, 2017, at 12:33 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> People often consider Wilson and Shea's The Illuminatus Trilogy to be
>> >>> junior-grade Pynchon, as in the link below, where one commenter
>> >>> describes it as "Gravity's Rainbow with training wheels".
>> >>>
>> >>> http://www.librarything.com/topic/32913
>> >>>
>> >>> On Sun, Aug 27, 2017 at 11:18 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>> >>> wrote:
>> >>> I have been reading Robert Anton Wilson’s Cosmic Trigger( 1 and 3) and
>> >>> am
>> >>> now starting into some Leary writing, which I found one of the more
>> >>> interesting parts of the Trigger books. Leary was more scientific than
>> >>> he is
>> >>> credited with, though clearly was left in the lurch by the outlawing
>> >>> of the
>> >>> intriguing chemistry brain interaction  which is one of the most
>> >>> fascinating
>> >>> in nature’s pharmacy and deserves open scientific, therapeutic and
>> >>> artistic
>> >>> inquiry.
>> >>>
>> >>> Clearly P experimented with the same substances and has the same habit
>> >>> of
>> >>> making cross disciplinary connections as Leary and Wilson: music
>> >>> scale, male
>> >>> female electro chemistry, poetry as code, alchemy, tarot,
>> >>> communication
>> >>> accross time, psychology-science-political power games-control vs.
>> >>> freedom.
>> >>> Both use humor in powerful ways, and Wilson read and admired P and
>> >>> Joyce
>> >>> enormously. The main philosophic difference seems to be along the
>> >>> lines of
>> >>> pessimism/ optimism for the human condition. Leary/Wison see the
>> >>> potential
>> >>> to break non-functional conditioning whereas P sees those habits as
>> >>> more
>> >>> pervasive and operating on dangerous feedback loops. For P
>> >>> redemption/liberation/clarity is rare and individual with little
>> >>> impact on
>> >>> the macrocosm. On the other hand, there is an arc of movement toward
>> >>> optimism since GR.
>> >>>
>> >>> At the end of bleeding edge we are dropped off in a dangerous world
>> >>> made
>> >>> worse by the police state approach to IT , but with a nodding
>> >>> invitation of
>> >>> a departure into the  Deep web as an outpost of free exchange, ghosts
>> >>> and
>> >>> new games. The internet and virtual reality were intriguing frontiers
>> >>> to
>> >>> Leary/Wilson also.
>> >>>
>> >>> Any thoughts on a Leary, Pynchon, Wilson connection
>> >>>
>> >>> -
>> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>> >>>
>> >>> -
>> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> >>>
>> >>> -
>> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=nchon-l
>> >>> .
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >
>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l