Some things to consider for Tuesday's class
Righto,
GR is on the map and causing concern and enjoyment from the get go. Some of you are appreciating the style of Pynchon, his barely constrained, hyperactive descriptions. Some of you are fretting over the structure and "meaning" of the work. Some of you just like reading about bodily secretions and excrements.
Here are some things to start thinking about.
Book 1 opens with a quote from Wernher von Braun about transformation. For those of you who don't know, von Braun was a Nazi rocket scientist who was "rescued" by the US after WWII. He became very instrumental in NASA after the war. You can thank him for the Apollo moon landing.
But the notion of transformation will play a role in the book. Who or what will be redeemed? And "Beyond the Zero" also suggests some redemption. What is the zero line?
preterite: the passed over, those not elected--very important from Pynchon's puritan heritage. Who are the preterite in GR? (Incidently, Pynchon's ancestors (like Slothrop's) can be traced back to the puritan founding of the country. William Pynchon wrote a heritical text in the 17th century, and John Pynchon founded Springfield and Roxbury, Mass.
We may want to talk about Pavlovian psychology of Pointsman vs the statistical data of Roger Mexico. (see pp55-56)
GR is on the map and causing concern and enjoyment from the get go. Some of you are appreciating the style of Pynchon, his barely constrained, hyperactive descriptions. Some of you are fretting over the structure and "meaning" of the work. Some of you just like reading about bodily secretions and excrements.
Here are some things to start thinking about.
Book 1 opens with a quote from Wernher von Braun about transformation. For those of you who don't know, von Braun was a Nazi rocket scientist who was "rescued" by the US after WWII. He became very instrumental in NASA after the war. You can thank him for the Apollo moon landing.
But the notion of transformation will play a role in the book. Who or what will be redeemed? And "Beyond the Zero" also suggests some redemption. What is the zero line?
preterite: the passed over, those not elected--very important from Pynchon's puritan heritage. Who are the preterite in GR? (Incidently, Pynchon's ancestors (like Slothrop's) can be traced back to the puritan founding of the country. William Pynchon wrote a heritical text in the 17th century, and John Pynchon founded Springfield and Roxbury, Mass.
We may want to talk about Pavlovian psychology of Pointsman vs the statistical data of Roger Mexico. (see pp55-56)
posted by Not Scott at 8:02 AM
1 Comments:
As far as "Beyond the Zero" goes, on a simplistic level it obviously refers to the effects of Pavlovian conditioning and extinction (see top of page 85; he even puts it in italics, for god's sake). I can see how it could refer to redemption, but I see it more as a reference to apathy. Or, what happens when the war has been going on so long that human drives and dreams are lost (interactions between Roger and Jessica meander toward this point).
But basically, I just wanted to argue with the professor.
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