M&D p. 152: "the Night of the 'Black Hole,' some Zero-Point of history"

[Smoke Teff]

I can't recall any instance of P offering an actually formalized
belief in original sin (as being one thing or another). I guess what I
mean is...

to the extent he uses the language and iconography of Abrahamic
religion (Judeo-Christianity in particular)--which is complicated
because every language&iconography system he constructs is developed
to suit each particular novel--he seems to be interested in the idea
of original sin. And to the extent he writes novels of history, he
seems to be looking backward to try to see all the lines singling in
the present--and to the extent he's interested in forces of evil and
violence, he seems to try to identify where/when/how those enter and
move through the world. And he is also obviously interested in
consciousness--what are the "original sin"-like qualities of the
psyche that allow evil to move through men and the systems men
construct, often unwittingly.

Really it's kind of an orientation toward original sin, or an
orientation to man & history that looks through some primary framework
of original sin.

On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:22 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I might push back on the zero as overly associated with "original
> sin". Seems to me,
> TRP is very, very cagey and quite self-hidden about THAT belief. Not about
> full evil in the world,
> which is certainly a GR motif but ...whence it comes when he has such a deep
> vision of
> its historical causes....yeah, yeah,  i know HOW did it get into history and
> he might be pointing
> at "original sin" at places in his work where THAT seems the better
> explanation, imho
> ...but he also has a whole oeuvre pointing at original goodness too, I
> say....
>
> But I have read Zero-Point of History as related to the zero point of energy
> seen in history...
> One of the steps, in the step-function that is history, where the worst is
> reached....your words:
> "This event itself is put forward and suggested to have a special
> spatio-temporal/historical gravity."
>
> example
> slightly moved beyond the zero point of the horizontal scale,
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 7:26 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Have written about this extensively elsewhere, so withholding most of
>> what I’ve already said about it.
>>
>>
>>
>> This event itself is put forward and suggested to have a special
>> spatio-temporal/historical gravity. Will be interesting to track to
>> what extent that is true—or if other candidates are put forth for this
>> special historical gravity—over the course of the novel.
>>
>>
>>
>> Seems also to track with P’s general interest in original sin—the
>> original sin of (modern) history?
>>
>>
>>
>> Norman Brown, in Life Against Death, suggests that man is defined by
>> his history-making abilities/tendencies. This ability to make history
>> is, for Brown, both the cause/dawn of man, and also the cause of man’s
>> suffering (i.e. original sin). So what does that mean for the
>> zero-point of history?
>>
>>
>>
>> Insofar as P is always probing for original sin, this reflects
>> interestingly on GR’s Beyond The Zero stuff, in ways I’m not currently
>> equipped to fully grapple with. Thoughts?
>>
>>
>>
>> The ZERO is associated, in P’s oeuvre-wide vision (as I understand it
>> from this vantage point) with original sin (or maybe, less biblically,
>> with the inherent vice of all man-made systems, all man’s endeavors,
>> etc), with the dawn of man, with the beginning of history/modernity,
>> and with (the innocence of?) the period before (Slothrop’s)
>> conditioning…
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l