Is CoL49 essentially a "blueprint for all conspiracy theories"?

[Mark Kohut]

I've been involuntarily thinking about Pynchon thinking about these times
and all I think I know is he
is noticing differently like the artist he is......I have little idea
what...except that the preterites suffer the most as always.

Like the calm in NYC after 9/11 retreated in Bleeding Edge.

On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 5:04 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes. Indeed, there is quite a difference between Pynchon's historical
> investigations into real-world conspiracies among IG Farben, the East India
> Company, the FBI etc. and say the batshit nonsense of the QAnon folks, say
> today.
>
> I was actually thinking about this past week reading up on the Q people. Is
> Pynchon still valuable in the age of widespread conspiracy thinking? I
> would say yes. I also was thinking this week how Pynchon sees the state of
> the world/nation today after writing about it for so long. Is he just
> depressed how things have gotten steadily worse or is it one of those I
> told you so attitudes as he in the latest works after M&D that moved away
> from knotted unknowable conspiracies to more direct critiques of power in
> AtD and onwards.
>
> in any case, i'm sure to quote Adam Curtis, today all feels like being
> trapped in the mind of a depressed hippy
>
> rich
>
> On Wed, May 20, 2020 at 6:33 AM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > It's always nice when someone recommends a Pynchon novel. Then again I'm
> > kinda sick of being told -  this is going on for years now & could also
> > be found in the media coverage about the GR radio play - that it's all
> > just a big inkblot test the reader alone can make sense of. Pynchon's
> > work is so much more than just an "exemplary blueprint for all
> > conspiracy theories" ... & the distinction between sense & nonsense
> > remains, in contrary to what the article says, always fundamentally
> intact.
> >
> > + Dass Literatur ein ebenso großer Stifter von Sinn wie von Unsinn sein
> > kann beziehungsweise dass die Unterscheidung von beiden vollkommen, nun
> > ja, unsinnig ist, sobald man ein Buch aufklappt, das in anderer Absicht
> > als dem Übermitteln von Informationen geschrieben ist, führt kaum ein
> > Roman so formvollendet vor wie „Die Versteigerung von No. 49“ von Thomas
> > Pynchon. In unserer von Hygiene-Demonstranten bevölkerten
> > Fake-News-Gegenwart bietet er sich an als mustergültige Blaupause aller
> > Verschwörungstheorien ...Leider endet der Roman eine Seite vor dem
> > erkenntnistheoretischen Showdown./ Und auch im echten Leben bleiben die
> > Verschwörungstheoretiker immer kurz vor der Auflösung stecken ... +
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.welt.de/kultur/article207932295/Pynchons-Versteigerung-von-No-49-Blaupause-aller-Verschwoerungstheorien.html
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>