THOMAS PYNCHON'S ALTERNATIVES TO THE WASTELAND An abstract of a Dissertation by ...

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WHEN EVEN THE BEST IS BAD:
THOMAS PYNCHON'S ALTERNATIVES TO THE WASTELAND
An abstract of a Dissertation by
Owana K.,~cLester-Greenfield
May 1978
Drake University
Advisor: Stuart L. Burns
. Four of ~homas Pynchon's virtually ignored short
stor~es are cruclal to a full appreciation and understanding
of hlS larger works; contained in them, in seminal form, is
every theme around which V., The Crying of Lot 49 and
Gravity's Rainbow revolve-.- In the most important of his nine
short works, Pynchon introduces the gamut of alternatives for
human action in the face of a contemporary Wasteland, the
nightmare world of chaos, absurdity and corruption which is
reality this twentieth century. The human responses pre
sented in "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna," "Low-lands,1I
IIEntr opy and "The Secret Integration" are developed and
ll
expanded upon in V. and Lot 49, and throughout the six
works, Pynchon advocates active resistance to the negative
forces which drive the universe: passivity insures a death
in-life existence and is certainly and irrevocably damning.
In IIMortality and Mercy in Vienna" emerges the most
extreme of the delineated responses. A savior in the person
of Cleanth Siegel effects, through an act of annihilation, a
cleansing redemption for a decadent flock and an absolute
del rance from the void. In V., the annihilation motif
explodes in dimension, with Lady V., Hugh Godolphin and the
Whole Sick Crew illustrating a communal, historical death
drift via an obsession with inanimacy; in Lot 49, several
characters fer suicide to that more subtle extinction.
Dennis Flange of "Low-landsll decides on withdrawal
from a led self born of his tendency to passivity. Re-
t ing into a fantasy submarine world with a fictional
image of a rmer self, he substitutes one death realm for
another. In the subsequent novels, Flange is reincarnated in
Benny Profane, Fausto Maijstral and the desperate citizens
who comprise the Tristero.
Mani sting what will prove to be a lasting preoccupa
tion with the second law of thermodynamics and the field of
in rmation theory, "Entropy" introduces Pynchon's fascinat
with the lication of scientific principles to literature.
Additionally, in the actions of.Callisto and,Meatball Mulligan
surfaces a lari of alternatlves to twentleth cen
reali ssive withdrawal into the hothouse of the
and act involvement in the riotous Street of the
W~ile callis~o determines upon an absurd lifestyle, as will
Sldney Stencll and several characters in the second novel
~tands.as anti~
Mulligan the most heroic of Pynchon's many
heroes;. hl.s futlle struggle is revealed as the best , and
most dlfflcult, of possible alternatives to the Wasteland.
The first of the author's paranoid questers is pre
sented in "The Secret Integration," the story of a children's
conspiracy formed to undermine a malicious adult plot which
thrives in Mingeborough, Massachusetts. The actively
rebellious Operation Spartacus embarks upon a quest which, if
destined to ultimate failure, allows nonetheless for a measure
of achievement and the state of "greenness." The paranoia
which enables the Spartacan ringleader, Grover Snodd, to
refashion sinister events of his daily life into an adult
cabal, allows Herbert Stencil and Oedipa Maas to reinvent
terrifyingly random void worlds through the mental projections
of a malevolent V.-plot and a ubiquitous Tristero conspiracy.
Mingeborough's small-scale rebellion mushrooms in the novels
into the obsessive paranoid quests which, if imbued with
dangers and defects, guarantee the survival of Stencil and
Oedipa.
Throughout the short stories, V. and The Crying of
Lot 49, Pynchon endorses active, albei~vain, combat against
the negative forces of degradation, dehumanization and death.
A brief concluding glance at Gravity's Rainbow discloses the
consequence of a universal tendency to non-resistance and
voluntary acquiescence to systems of control and destruction.
Pynchon's third novel, in many respects a summation of his
earlier works, depicts, through such figures as Katje Borgesius,
Franz PokIer and Edward Pointsman, an accretion of refusals
to act. The death of the world is the price, ultimately, to
be paid for passivity.
WHEN EVEN THE BEST IS BAD:
THO~4AS PTI~CHONfS ALTEm~ATIVES TO THE WASTELAND
A Dissertation
Presented to
The School of Graduate Studies
Drake University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the rements for the Degree
Doctor of Arts
by
r_,'""""onf Id
a 1<'
1978
WHEN EVEN THE BEST IS BAD:
THOMAS PYNCHON'S ALTERNATIVES TO THE WASTELAND
by
Owana K. McLester-Greenfield
Approved by Committee:
- Chairman
COl'lTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION
WADING THROUGH THE WASTELAND: GRAPPLING WITH
GAli131\GE .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
• • • • • • • • • • 1
.
SAVIORS AND SUICIDES: Al'mIHILATION AS THE ANSliER .. 17
SEAWORLDS, SEWERS AND SECRET SOCIETIES: .GO.IN.G.
THROUGH WITHDRAWAL .. .. .. 86
if • •
THE HOTHOUSE AND THE STREET: SUCCUMBING TO THE .
SECOND LAW .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. • • • • • • • • • .. ., 116
THE POWER OF P1\RANOIA: CREATING THE COMFORTING
QUEST .. .. *' '* 303
9' .. ., ., .. •• •• ., .. •• .. .. .. ., ...
PASSIVITY .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .... 393
tJUt~M EVEN BEST IS BAD .. "" 429
433
• • • • • • • • • 9 • • • • •
WADING THROUGH THE WASTELAND: GRAPPLING WITH GARBAGE
Son, • .. .. someday this will all be yours..
1;1 II
--Philip Castle,
Cat's Cradle--
lIThere is Thomas pynchon appearing out of nowhere
with a vision so contempora.ry it makes your nose bleed,...l
states Bruce Jay Friedman in his Foreward to Black HlJD'l.or.
Pynchon's contemporary vision, which also makes the heart
sick and the mind reel, is of a diseased and dying \j>lasteland
worLd, Whether he is,. as has been variously suggest.ed, a
black humorist, an affluent terrorist., a psychic novelist,
, a novelist. of disintegration, a humorous
, anti-novelist, aneo-realist
or a is possessed of a literary
pess.imistic and ultimately
affixed to his name testify,
, blackness of that vision,
successive work.
encompasses existence a century
is and sterile, crush-
processes, natural and
2
man-made, whioh are ohanneling life eVer deathward; the
author sorutinizes what Bernard Bergonzi terms our "inored
ible reality," a reality oonstantly transcending itself,
moving always to new heights of absurdity and horror which
stagger even the most extravagantly inventive of imagina
2
tions. That the locus of Pynchon's vision is frequently
America is only incidental, for the malaise whioh is the
essence of the twentieth century infects countries and
continents spreading rampantly from its inception at the
1
end of the nineteenth century, it has long surpassed
epidemic proportions, culminating at last in the terminal
sickness of a world.
Thomas pynchon is a supreme chronicler of the
etiology of the Wasteland contagion, and a concern with
causes throughout his works as a recurrence of
carta motifs" After the appearance of V., an ambivalent
commented that "Mr" Pynchon writes with enormous
virtuosity" It is a pity that his imagination
on fUUUU!OUS t.hemes. tt3 The nauseous tbarnes wni·eh•.
, however, less the product of a
than of an eye which overlooks nothing and
intuits much. Pynenonts themes are the
Berqonzi, "America: .. The Incredible. Real
Novel (Pittsburgh: Un1versity
ity,
of PUi tSJ:Jul~ah::::::"'-;;';;:";:::;':~~''''~iIr'\,P"a6.
3 1' s of l'1hat?, rev. of v.,
11 It
11 October 1963, p. 813.
3
result of what Paul t4est terms his "transcendent stare at
n
4
the quality of life this twentieth centurYi their nauseous
nature derives from his recognition that there is no
quality to life this century. To elucidate his major
motifs, the author assembles, atomizes and defines con
temporary man as he exists immersed in contemporary reality.
He delineates the symptoms of an infected Wasteland by
detailing the fate of its victims.
For Pynchon, contemporary man is a product of
twentieth century massness and prosperity. eis individual
ity has been eradicated in the emergence of mass cities and
societies, bureaucracies and technologies, social organiza-
tions and political institutions. He is dwarfed, stripped
to insignificance, ground into anonymity. Mass man is a
number, an inconsequentiality and a replaceable functionary
unit. Overwhelmed and out-powered by the awesome scope of
industrial and technological energies, his compara
tively meager resources atrophy, his own feeble energies
longer an established and secure identity, man
al and ifferent: he slips into isolation.
to drift random, a passive receptor to
Inora power 1 stimuli imposed from outside the self.
With individuality thus extinguished, extremes of
and behavior are eliminated. A universal
personali
1 tiest, IIperpetuating the Obsolete, Ccnmnonweal,
n
81 (11 November 1967),204.
average is attained, and deviation from absolute conformity
is denied. The sophistication of mass media and its per
vasive influence insure even the mass production and
systematic reception and assimilation of opinions and
desires. It becomes incumbent on contemporary man to
accommodate himself to the fact of massness and to weave
himself into the fabric of normaloy and conformity, only
within certain prescribed parameters may he achieve even
the smallest degree of distinction. Man becomes, therefore,
a consumer, acquiring the accoutrements of acceptability.
His ability to consume determines the degree of acceptabil~
ity or distinction he aohieves. His economic potential
derives, in turn, from his capacity to produce in accordance
'('lith consumer demands. Thereby, man himself is reduced to
a commodity, the value of which is commensurate with exist-
Ing desires. If he is able to accommodate himself to the
laws of supply and demand, he is granted normalcy: if not,
he is discarded.
Materialism begets meaninglessness, and life in
s-consuming society comes quickly to consist of little
more than empty and repetitious acts of buying and selling,
initiating what Irving Howe designates as "the hovering
sickness of soul, the despairing contentment, the prosperous
malaise. 115 As man consumes, so he is consumed. t-J'ith
h~1ass Society and Postmodern Fiction,1l
(Ne~;] York: Harcourt, Brace
5
possessions and potential determininq human worth" interior
values begin to disint.egrate. Feelings of
fade; old 10yalt.ies and family t.ies dissolve; t.radit.ions
become less bindin9~ established social and religious
~tl!~~~~·rities are weakened; et.hical and moral standards
collapse.. JameaE.. Miller, Jr.. stat.es that grotesque
incongruity between the t,enuous spiritual of
man and his fat, vacuous, unrippled life has been the source
of much wonder and dismay, horror and the
fl6
modern novel.. For Thomas , that is
also an obvious manifestation disease..
Concomitant technological
advances denote progress and a
det.erioration of humanity.. In mass societies,
as the material and man-made assume ascendancy, the human
is devalued.. Etienne Cherd1u, a major conspirator in
Pynchon s liThe Secret Integration, may have the final
t tl
\-'loro about the coming reign of the non-human1
Etienne confides to his friends: father says every-
thing s g01ng to be n"lachines when we grow He says t.he
t
only jobs open wi.11 be in junkyards for busted machines ..
The only thing a machine do is play jokes.. That's
Jr", ItThe Quest Absurd: New
and
~~~ Surd Absurd: Essaxs in
""......."1.V'-:-Unlvers!ty of Chicago Press,