On the ambiguity of Pynchon's metaphysical beliefs in Against the Day

[Mark Kohut]

To the unanswerable question of Pynchon's ultimate metaphysics, one could
as naturally as sunlight light over the ranges argue that P's vision of
'the meaning of the world' in Against the Day is a kind of pantheism
without God, the ineluctable beauty of the whole damn world all the way
down. .....Religion with a Godhead seems.....shunted aside the whole book
for 'some kind' of Eastern buddhist-like beliefs--also however joked about
as all Western religious tradition beliefs are in AtD and all his work,  we
know.

Yet there is that thematic thread in AtD, thru Mark, the Gospeller, trying
to follow history back to the Western "Godman", Jesus the (supposed)
Christ. It is not uninteresting that this AtD thread uses the Eastern
Orthodox religious tradition [of which there is also a Pope-accepting
Catholic branch. Andy Warhol accepted this tradition; it was the one I was
born into, same literal church as Andy], the one that claims the loudest
that its origins can TOUCH, thru real men, that Jesus.

I discovered the book below [The Beauty of the Infinite] by accident and
read into it enjoyably. For the aesthetics, at least and that famous leap
of faithful understanding.  There is a long piece on the whole oeuvre and
theology of the author in the new LA Review of Books (from which these two
segments are lifted).

I was taken with the clear presentation of 'pantheism' *with* a Godhead in
the second paragraph. Sometimes labeled panentheism and then detailed
further by believing thinkers. Another way of seeing Pynchon poised on a
balance beam of ultimate ambiguity Iceland Spar-like. Two little letters in
English shift his possible vision totally.

And then that later line about a contemporary image for the devil
is.....priceless TRP, no?



*"The Beauty of the Infinite*, a full-bore metaphysics of beauty, his first
published book and still magnum opus."

"God is the eternal and immaterial fullness of being and life that is the
condition of there being anything at all. Infinitely rich and inexhaustibly
beautiful, God is being itself, and as such, goodness and truth. Singular
and simple, God lacks nothing yet, out of boundless and inexplicable love,
creates what is other than himself, that which is not God. Distinct from
God, what is not God — which is to say, everything: creation — is
nevertheless bound to God, dependent at every moment and in every respect.
Yet this dependence is not debilitating but enabling. It is the source of
power and identity and, for living creatures, agency and, for rational
creatures, freedom."


And Hart was right, in 2011,
<https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2011/05/a-person-you-flee-at-parties>
to
remark that the best contemporary image for the devil would be “[a]
merciless real estate developer whose largest projects are all casinos.”


Bonus lightness for those who read this far:
A...and. A new perceived profanation of the sacred by said Orthodoxy: *The
Times of London*‏ <https://twitter.com/thetimes>
Verified account @thetimes <https://twitter.com/thetimes>  8m8 minutes ago
<https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/911200946163781633>
More

The Greek Orthodox Church has urged worshippers to boycott Lidl and Nestlé
because of this packaging

https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/911200946163781633
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20170923/7ffbc39d/attachment.html>