GR translation: their own pitiable contingency here, in its midst

[jody boy]

 Pitiable contingency is one of three qualities that together define
their existence,
here, along with the War and the "absolute rule of chance." There would seem to
be an ironic connection between their condition and our narrator's
suggestion, not
sure where in the text, that we, too, "will want cause and effect" the
absolute lack
of which is as terrifying as its opposite- everything being caught in
a causal web of
connection. Of course, causality and contingency are not mutually exclusive, but
in a universe ruled by absolute chance, causality is ultimately meaningless. Not
that meaninglessness is such a bad thing...

Ironic, too, in the sense of Roger Mexico's suggestion that Pointsman's focus on
causality in his zeal to unravel the connection between Slothrop's map
and the V2
strikes in London, is outdated, and that he needs to move beyond cause
and effect
in order to come to terms with the two distinct yet complementary phenomenon.

If both the people launching the rockets and those being targeted by
them are victims
of pure chance, then who or what, if anything, is controlling the
rockets? Which leads us
back to the consequences of Slothrop's conditioning forming an
?unintended? connection
between cause and effect.

On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 9:21 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
> V96.5-16, P97.40-98.10   How seriously is she playing? In a conquered
> country, one’s own occupied country, it’s better, she believes, to
> enter into some formal, rationalized version of what, outside,
> proceeds without form or decent limit day and night, the summary
> executions, the roustings, beatings, subterfuge, paranoia, shame . . .
> though it is never discussed among them openly, it would seem Katje,
> Gottfried, and Captain Blicero have agreed that this Northern and
> ancient form, one they all know and are comfortable with—the strayed
> children, the wood-wife in the edible house, the captivity, the
> fattening, the Oven—shall be their preserving routine, their shelter,
> against what outside none of them can bear—the War, the absolute rule
> of chance, their own pitiable contingency here, in its midst. . . .
>
> What does "contingency" mean here?
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l