Pynchon & Wagner

Wed Sep 23 10:39:59 UTC 2020

I think that too......and, a pretty great reader, Kenneth Burke
used the concept of SYMBOLIC FORM to talk about the structure
of fictions--Art per Cassirer---but because a lot he wrote was about novels,
that quotidian art form, myth often arose, if it did, in a less obvious
symbolic way,
I might say.

On Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 5:44 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think Hume had it right.  Slothrup as Sacrificial Lamb was very overt at
> the beginning of GR, in a very beautiful way.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 11:43 AM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
> >
> > Had to think of Wagner, too, when I re-read the following the other
> night:
> >
> > "A number of critics have discussed Pynchon's presentation of history as
> > mythopoesis. Kathryn Hume, for instance, has identified a mythic pattern
> > in GRAVITY'S RAINBOW consisting of an initial paradise (the North
> > American New World), a fall (the colonization of that world by
> > Slothrop's forebears, serpents in the Garden), a central symbolic action
> > (immachination, which creates a symbolic marriage between human beings
> > and the gods defined as machines and thereby creates a 'new order'), and
> > a predicted apocalypse (either holocaust or paradise, depending on how
> > one evaluates this wedding of man and machine). In PYNCHON'S
> > MYTHOGRAPHY, Hume illustrates how this general theme is filled by
> > Pynchon with value-laden concepts drawn from numerous mythological
> > systems, from ancient pagan myths, Greek and Christian mythos, and
> > postsecular religions. Using a different schema, Catherine R. Stimpson
> > interprets Pynchon's presentation of women in his novels as a variation
> > of the 'white goddess' myth elaborated by Robert Graves. Jungian
> > interpretation of Pynchon's mysticism or mythopoesis, such as that by
> > Thomas Moore, are variants of this kind of reading; from this
> > perspective, the Jungian 'archetype' would provide the tropes by which
> > reality is organized. Furthermore, Debra Moddelmog has discussed the
> > significance of Oedipus myth elements in LOT 49, while John McClure has
> > discussed syncretic myth as postsecularity in Pynchon's work. These and
> > other critics take pains to understand the odd mysticism, spirituality
> > and religious allusions that are always a part of Pynchon's fiction.
> > Pynchon's novels include symbolic references to Judaism and Christianity
> > as well as pantheism, animism, Tarot and Blavatsky-like channeling,
> > Orphism, Kabbalah, Hinduism, Buddhism, various scientific mysticisms,
> > metempsychosis, gnosticisms, Native American dream-vision and
> > Intelligent Design. These do not appear as ornamental images in his
> > novels but rather as integral to Pynchon's historical vision, a mystical
> > counter-history to the rationalistic, monovocal Anglo-European history
> > of technocratric capitalism."
> >
> > Amy J. Elias: History; pp. 123-135, here 132f., in: The Cambridge
> > Companion to Thomas Pynchon, ed. by Dalsgaard, Herman & McHale.
> >
> > For Ernst Cassirer myth is a SYMBOLIC FORM, the earliest form of
> > meaningful structuring of the world, from which all the other symbolic
> > forms - like art, religion, law, science/technology & also (elaborated)
> > language - historically originated. Important to Cassirer, who did not
> > intend to create a synthesis or system, is the irreducible plurality of
> > the different symbolic forms. The symbolic forms - functionally
> > identical insofar as they're all offering expression, presentation &
> > meaning - must always be understood on their own terms. Which means in
> > the given context, among other things, that myth, according to Cassirer
> > operating upon the principle of similarity (dt. Ähnlichkeit; remember -
> > if not: Scroll down! - Wagner's dictum that the myth "is always
> > right"?), can, in its contextual validity, never be explained or
> > debunked by science (be it STEM, economics, sociology or psychology). Of
> > course this also is true vice versa -
> >
> > Pynchon & Wagner are  both practicing mythopoesis in order to challenge
> > the one-dimensional understanding of modernity.
> >
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ReY89_fM0g
> >
> > Wagner - Lohengrin (Bayreuth 1972)
> >
> > Am 18.09.20 um 01:42 schrieb Kai Frederik Lorentzen:
> > >
> > > Not in terms of social psychology but in those of art & politics,
> > > cinema & its soundtrack might be more interesting than rock/pop music
> > > when it comes to Wagner's legacy in late modern culture:
> > >
> > > + ... “The Birth of a Nation” set the pace for a century of Wagnerian
> > > aggression on film. More than a thousand movies and TV shows feature
> > > the composer on their soundtracks, yoking him to all manner of
> > > rampaging hordes, marching armies, swashbuckling heroes, and scheming
> > > evildoers ... Action sequences are only one facet of Wagner’s
> > > celluloid presence. A colorful—and often shady—array of Wagner
> > > enthusiasts have appeared onscreen, from the woebegone lovers of
> > > Robert Siodmak’s noir “Christmas Holiday” to the diabolical android of
> > > Ridley Scott’s “Alien: Covenant
> > > <
> >
> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/alien-covenant-bursts-with-pomposity
> >.”
> >
> > > The composer himself is portrayed in more than a dozen movies,
> > > including Tony Palmer’s extravagant, eight-hour 1983 bio-pic, starring
> > > Richard Burton. But the Wagnerization of film goes deeper than that.
> > > Cinema’s integration of image, word, and music promised a fulfillment
> > > of the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art,” which
> > > Wagner propagated at one stage of his career. His informal system of
> > > assigning leitmotifs to characters and themes became a defining trait
> > > of film scores. And Hollywood has drawn repeatedly from Wagner’s
> > > gallery of mythic archetypes: his gods, heroes, sorcerers, and
> > > questers. / This contradictory swirl of associations mirrors the
> > > composer’s fractured legacy: on the one hand, as a theatrical
> > > visionary who created works of Shakespearean breadth and depth; on the
> > > other, as a vicious anti-Semite who became a cultural totem for
> > > Hitler. Like operagoers across the generations, filmmakers have had
> > > trouble deciding whether Wagner is an inexhaustible store of wonder or
> > > a bottomless well of hate. But that uncertainty also mirrors the film
> > > industry’s own ambiguous role as an incubator of heroic fantasies,
> > > which can serve a wide range of political ends. When Hollywood talks
> > > about Wagner, it is often—consciously or not—talking about itself. /
> > > When the lights went down at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1876, for
> > > the première of the “Ring of the Nibelung” cycle, a kind of cinema
> > > came into being. The Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick, no friend of
> > > Wagner’s, felt that he was looking at a “bright-colored picture in a
> > > dark frame,” as in a diorama display. The composer had intended as
> > > much, saying that the stage picture should have the “unapproachability
> > > of a dream vision.” The orchestra was hidden in a sunken pit known as
> > > the “mystic abyss”; its sound wafted through the room as if it were
> > > transmitted by a speaker system. The inaugural performances took place
> > > in a near-blackout. From the Festspielhaus, according to the media
> > > theorist Friedrich Kittler, “the darkness of all our cinemas derives”
> > > ... Wagner’s influence is nowhere more enduring than in the realm of
> > > myth and legend. He manipulated Teutonic and Arthurian myths with
> > > consummate dexterity, understanding how they could resonate
> > > allegorically for modern audiences. “The incomparable thing about myth
> > > is that it is always true, and its content, through utmost
> > > compression, is inexhaustible,” he wrote. Wagner’s master array of
> > > borrowed, modified, and reinvented archetypes—the wanderer on a ghost
> > > ship, the savior with no name, the cursed ring, the sword in the tree,
> > > the sword reforged, the novice with unsuspected powers—lurks behind
> > > the blockbuster fantasy and superhero narratives that hold sway in
> > > contemporary Hollywood ... The chief lesson to be drawn from the case
> > > of Wagner is that the worship of art and artists is always a dangerous
> > > pursuit. In classical music, the slow, fitful learning of that lesson
> > > has had a salutary effect: contemporary European productions of
> > > Wagner’s operas routinely confront the darker side of his legacy.
> > > Perhaps it is time to contemplate the less fashionable question of how
> > > Hollywood films and other forms of popular culture can be complicit in
> > > the exercise of American hegemony— ... +
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/31/how-wagner-shaped-hollywood
> > > https://www.goethe.de/ins/es/de/kul/mag/20758663.html
> > >
> > > + ... Auf Wagners Einfluss auf moderne Kultur kann im Gegensatz dazu
> > > gar nicht genug aufmerksam gemacht werden. Dieser ist direkter
> > > erkennbar als beispielsweise der eines Mozarts oder Beethovens... Die
> > > Filmmusik, die eine breite Hörerschaft auch der jüngeren Generation
> > > anspricht, greift viele Methoden des Deutschen auf: Die majestätischen
> > > Bläser und die dynamischen Streicher in den Soundtracks bekannter
> > > Komponisten wie John Williams (vor allem/Star Wars/), Hans Zimmer
> > > (/Fluch der Karibik/,/Gladiator/) oder Howard Shore (/Der Herr der
> > > Ringe/) lassen sich auf die Stücke Wagners zurückführen und sind von
> > > diesem hörbar inspiriert. Auch seine Art der Verwendung von
> > > Leitmotiven gehört zu den handwerklichen Grundlagen der Filmmusik ... +
> > >
> > > I like the way Lars von Trier works with the prelude from "Tristan und
> > > Isolde" in his movie "Melancholia".
> > >
> > >
> > > Am 17.09.20 um 18:26 schrieb Gary Webb:
> > >> Every time Wagner comes up lately I’m reminded of Allen Bloom’s
> > >> comparison of the frenzy induced in the youth due to Rock/Pop music(
> > >> ...this was in the 80s) to the frenzy Wagner’s music induced in
> > >> Germany almost a century later...
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1987/06/07/is-rock-music-rotting-our-kids-minds/a9f3e90a-f31f-41b3-921e-0041e40fa9f2/
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> I don’t agree with Bloom, and I wonder what he would think of the
> > >> things currently occupying our obsessive youth... probably that the
> > >> souls he was intent on saving from the dread Walkman, have long since
> > >> been lost, and mysteriously converted to 1s & 0s...
> > >>
> > >> Sent from my iPhone
> > >>
> > >>> On Sep 17, 2020, at 12:07 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> of course, Wagner's family had much to do with the reactionary
> > >>> beliefs even
> > >>> before Adolf came around--Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Winifred
> > >>> Wagner
> > >>> (both British-born), eg. Syberberg's long interview/documentary about
> > >>> Winifred gives some insight into the family dynamics following
> Wagner's
> > >>> death and legacy.
> > >>>
> > >>> rich
> > >>>
> > >>> On Thu, Sep 17, 2020 at 6:26 AM Kai Frederik Lorentzen
> > >>> <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> > >>> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Alex Ross:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> + ... In recent decades, scholars have reconstructed a school of
> > >>>> Wagnerian leftism, which gained purchase in Europe and America at
> the
> > >>>> end of the 19th century. Socialists, communists, social democrats,
> and
> > >>>> anarchists all found sustenance in Wagner’s work. After the
> Bolshevik
> > >>>> revolution, Wagner had a brief vogue as a figurehead of proletarian
> > >>>> culture. / The starting point for the Wagner left was the
> > >>>> composer’s own
> > >>>> revolutionary activity in 1848 and 1849, which forced him into
> > >>>> exile for
> > >>>> many years. His writingsArt and Revolution
> > >>>> <http://www.public-library.uk/ebooks/11/97.pdf>andThe Art
> > >>>> <http://users.skynet.be/johndeere/wlpdf/wlpr0062.pdf>-Work of the
> > >>>> Future
> > >>>> <http://users.skynet.be/johndeere/wlpdf/wlpr0062.pdf>were classic,
> if
> > >>>> eccentric, articulations of the idea that art could play a leading
> > >>>> role
> > >>>> in the struggle for social equality. His own work became a kind of
> > >>>> dream
> > >>>> theatre for the imagination of a future state. Of course, other
> > >>>> ideologies exploited the composer in the same way. It would be a
> > >>>> mistake
> > >>>> to say that Shaw and his fellow leftists found the “true” Wagner.
> > >>>> But it
> > >>>> would also be a mistake to say they misunderstood him... Wagner’s
> tale
> > >>>> of the corrupting power of the golden Ring matches Marx’s musings
> > >>>> on the
> > >>>> “perverting power” of money. When, in Das Kapital, Marx speaks of
> the
> > >>>> hoarding of commodities, he notes that the hoarder “sacrifices the
> > >>>> lusts
> > >>>> of the flesh to his gold fetish” and adopts “the gospel of
> > >>>> renunciation”. The word Marx uses here, “/Entsagung/”, is the same
> > >>>> that
> > >>>> Wagner applies to the dwarf Alberich’s renunciation of love – the
> > >>>> gesture that wins him access to the Rhinegold. For Marx and Wagner
> > >>>> alike, love and power are irreconcilable ... Peter Kropotkin was an
> > >>>> admirer ...Patrice Chéreau
> > >>>> <http://www.wagneroperas.com/index1976ring.html>’s epochal Bayreuth
> > >>>> production of the Ring
> > >>>> <http://www.wagneroperas.com/index1976ring.html>(1976-80), took
> > >>>> inspiration from The Perfect Wagnerite, realising Shaw’s vision of
> > >>>> “tall
> > >>>> hats for Tarnhelms, factories for Nibelheims, villas for
> Valhallas”. /
> > >>>> In 1943, the great theatre criticEric Bentley
> > >>>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/theater/eric-bentley-dead.html
> >–
> > >>>> who
> > >>>> recently died at the age of 103 – asked a charged question: “Is
> Hitler
> > >>>> always right about Wagner?” The question hangs in the air as the
> > >>>> controversy rolls ever on ...+
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> >
> https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/sep/17/why-did-lefties-love-wagner-alex-ross-wagnerism-revolution-hitler
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> In "Versuch über Wagner", Adorno writes:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> "In der Liebe sterben: das heißt auch, der Grenze gewahr werden,
> > >>>> die der
> > >>>> Eigentumsordnung am Menschen selbst gesetzt ist: erfahren, daß der
> > >>>> Anspruch der Lust, wäre er jemals zu Ende gedacht, eben jene
> autonome,
> > >>>> sich zugehörende und ihr eigenes Leben zum Ding erniedrigende Person
> > >>>> sprengen würde, die verblendet glaubt, im Besitz ihrer selbst Lust
> zu
> > >>>> finden, und der dieser Besitz Lust gerade entzieht. Wohl verweigert
> > >>>> Siegfried geizig den Rheintöchtern den Ring; aber indem er den
> > >>>> Kreis der
> > >>>> Verblendung schließt, findet er die Geste, die Erdscholle hinter
> > >>>> sich zu
> > >>>> werfen als das individuelle Leben, das der nicht mehr halten muß,
> > >>>> dem es
> > >>>> einmal hielt, was es versprach. Daher ist Wagners Werk nicht nur der
> > >>>> willige Prophet und beflissene Büttel von Imperialismus und
> > >>>> spätbürgerlichem Terror: es verfügt zugleich über die Kraft der
> > >>>> Neurose,
> > >>>> dem eigenen Verfall ins Auge zu sehen und ihn zu transzendieren im
> > >>>> Bilde, das dem saugenden Blick standhält."
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Am 28.08.20 um 12:41 schrieb Kai Frederik Lorentzen:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Did you know (cf. Christian Hänggi: Pynchon's Sound of Music,
> Zürich
> > >>>>> 2020: Diaphanes, p. 215) that Richard Wagner is the most frequently
> > >>>>> referenced composer & musician in Pynchon's books?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVprS--bLks
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Jessye Norman - Liebestod (Tristan und Isolde)
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> --
> > >>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >>>>> .
> > >>>>
> > >>>> --
> > >>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >>>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>