Pynchon: Creative Paranoia in Gravity's Rainbow PDF
Preview Pynchon: Creative Paranoia in Gravity's Rainbow
PYNCHON CREATIVE PARANOIA • In GRA VITY'S RAINBOW MARK RICHARD SIEGEL National Unw.sity Publications II KENNIKAT PRESS 1978 II Port Washington, N. Y. London Kennlkat Press National University Publications Literary Criticism Series General Editor John E. Becker F.lrltl/fh Dickinson Unlvenlty ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Inc.; T. S. Eliot, "Little Gidding," Four QUQrt~ts. From Tile Crying ofL ot 49 by Thomas pynchon. Copyright © 1966, 1965 by Thomas Pynchon. Reprinted by permission of J. B. Lippincott Company. Duino Elegies by Rainer Mnria Rilke. Translated from the German by J. B. Leishman nnd Stephen Spender. Copyright © 1939 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Copyright renewed 1967 by Stephen Spender and J. B. Leishman. Quotations used with the permission of the publisher. W. W. Nonon & Company, Inc., New York, New York. 10036. I and 71,ou by Martin Buber. Translated by Walter Kaufman. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970. Crltiqll~. for permission 10 reprint parts of my own article 'I('reative Paranoia" and a number of brief excerpts from various other articles. Copyright © 1978 by Kennikat Press Corp. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced. stored in a retrieval system, or IrlUlsmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise. without the prior written permission of the publisher. Manufactured in the United States of America Published b)' Kennikat Press Corp. Port Washington, N.Y./ London Libruy of Congress Cataloging in PubUcation Data Siegel, Mark Richard Pynchon. (National univenity publications) (literuy criticism series) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Pynchon. Thomas. Gravity's rainbow. 2. Paranoia in literature. PS3S66.YSSG738 813'.5'4 78.8512 ISBN 0.s046-9213-0 CONTENTS PREFACE 00 VII 1. INTRODUCTION 3 2. NARRATIVE POINT OF VIEW 20 3. CHARACTERIZATION AND PERSONAL SALVATION 44 4. SOCIO-CUL TURAl METAPHORS 73 5. PARODY AND PARANOIA THROUGH 104 NARRATIVE STRUCTURE 6. COSMIC GOSSIP-THE FUTURE 122 NOTES 126 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 130 INDEX 134 PREFACE I set out to write this study because of the great number and variety of people I met who told me, "I was just reading Gravity's Rainbow. It's great, but I get the feeling I don't really understand what's going OD. I mean, this guy just dissolves . ... I met these people on playgroWld n basketball courts, hitching rides, sitting on barely shaded park benches in Tucson, Arizona. Usually I told them that they really were getting at least part of the message: the world is a wondrous place, and people who are truly open to experience-and you have to be open to read Grtnlity ~ Rainbow-will probably always get the feeling that they don't quite understand exactly what's going on. We can't know much for sure. We have to perceive open-mindedly and interpret life creatively; perhaps at times conditions will make usa little paranoid-or will make us think we're paranoid when we're not-but we'll try to keep our balance, try to understand; we will hope for mercy, and we'U pray for a chance to be kind to others. We'll do these things, perhaps unconsciously, because something inside of us has felt the fear of dissolution by the force of the winds, has seen the horror of a friend turned to stone by his fear. This is not to say that we can't know anything; we are living in the age of the Educated Guess. The critic's role is not to restrict the varied responses of readers, but to organize them and to suggest new responses. However, this critic-reader relationship is paradoxical, since many readings of a novel may, in fact, restrict the possibilities for meanings which the novel offers and may prevent the comprehension of the author's work. My first aim in writing this study of Gravity's Rainbow is to open the floodgates of meaning for the reader, while at the same time offering a rubber raft \0 prevent him from being overwhelmed and swept away. vii viii I PREFACE I will point out some sights and try to deftne the currents of the novel. However I am well aware that when the critic casts his net (woven, as it t must be, by creative paranoia) into the depths of such a work. he is likely to haul up an old shoe or two along with his other squirming treasures. My second aim, to show the importance of Thomas Pynchon as a novelist, will be accomplished almost incidentally. The reader will see that Pynchon has opened up new areas for anistic examination. The changes he has wrought in the novel's reader-author relationship will, I believe, have far-reaching cffects in American literature. A reader's perception of the relationship be,tween character and narrative and reality should be changed for good by this novcl. This artistic innovation is not an idiosyncrasy or a limitation of Pynchon's, but reflects concurrent innovations in science and philosophy which have altered contemporary man's conception of his world. Pynchon's influence already seems to be apparent in the work of new writers of considerable talent such as Tom Robbins. I want to thank Art Kay John Hollowell, and Ardner Cheshire for t their technical assistance on this manuscript. I need to thank my wife Carole for all her love. ft.lark Siegel CREATIVE PARANOIA IN GRA VITY'S RAINBOW ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mark Richard Siegel teaches English literature at Arizona Slate Uni versity. He has authored several articles on Pynchon and one on film and comedy. INTRODUCTION .' Gravity's Rainbow has been the subject of controversy, of opinions ranging from fascination to revulsion, since its publication in 1973. This controversy was exemplified by the Pulitzer Prize Committee's final rejection of the novel as obscure and obscene after its unanimous election as the best novel of the year by the committee's own literary advisers. W. T. Lhamon announced that Gravity's Rainbo"' would "change the shape of fiction,'" and other reviewers claimed that it could only be measured against Moby-Dick and U{l'sseS. The negative criticisms that appeared, while conceding the technical virtues and the creative imagina tion which the novel displays, generally condemned it commit ted to 3S the "easy truth of apocalyptic nihilism.1 This controversy is not n surprising, since important novels almost always offend the sensibilities of some readers and create problems of comprehension for others. The critical attention created by this explosion of commentaries has not provided sufficient help for readers who look to criticism for aid in deciphering this complex novel. Gravity's Roillbo,v provides a wealth of materials which, when extracted from the context of the novel as a whole, can be used to support diametrically opposite interpretations of its mean ing. TIlerefore, while scholars such Edward Mendelson, Joseph Slade, 3S and Lance Ozier have shed some light on Pynchon's sources, on the precision and magnitude of the cultural landscape which Pynchon has created. and on specific but discontinuous aspects of the novel, the absence of any full-length study of the work as an organic whole has perpetuated the critical dissonance in the interpretation of even solne of the most basic features of Gral'ity 's Rainbow. I hope to pr?vide such a full-length study here. one which goes beyond 3
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