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How is Gravity's Rainbow Postmodern & War and Peace not?http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/burgess.htmdreyfus_1906: is your name an invitation? literarydiscussions: to join my message board literarydiscussions: http://www.literarydiscussions.myfreeforum.org dreyfus_1906: I was hoping for something more realtime literarydiscussions: whats on your mind dreyfus_1906: a hundred thousand things going at top speed of action potentials literarydiscussions: any particular book, author, genre dreyfus_1906: well, I recently finished that book by burgess. the fruity clockwork affair. It was a second read..the first time through when I was too young to appreciate any of the social commentary dreyfus_1906: I wonder why the man chose to add so many slavic words into that street idiom dreyfus_1906: would you happen to know russian? literarydiscussions: ya gavaryou parouski nyemnoshka, no ryedko literarydiscussions: i speak russian a little, infrequently literarydiscussions: yes, you are correct ,,,... There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, literarydiscussions: droogs means friends literarydiscussions: drushia dreyfus_1906: haha, I know practically none of it besides the few iks and ocks thrown around like candy balls in political pamphlets. but you've read that book I assume. Who hasn't. Why do you think he chose to mix slavic in..and do you think there is something functional in that? literarydiscussions: or droog drooga slavonic ... one to another dreyfus_1906: very close and face to face then literarydiscussions: In 1961 Burgess had also observed the stilyaqi, gangs of young thugs, in Leningrad. literarydiscussions: A Clockwork Orange is set in a future London and is told in nadsat, a mixture of Russian, English and American slang, gypsy talk and, odd bits of Jacobean prose. dreyfus_1906: what's that..Jacobean prose literarydiscussions: i am not certain literarydiscussions: The central question of the story is a philosophical one: is an 'evil' human being with free will preferable to a 'good' citizen without it? dreyfus_1906: i don't think ol' burgess really contributed much to that discussion dreyfus_1906: but that's curious..the stilyaqi. I know nothing about soviet history...but I would think youth gangs running around under that sort of regime kind of odd literarydiscussions: i am told there is a huge russian "mafia" even today literarydiscussions: "I write a thousand words a day," Burgess once said. "At that rate you'll write War and Peace in a year... or very near the entire output of E.M. Forster." dreyfus_1906: well that's true..but I've been told that the mafia burgeoned as political corruption exploded in the late 80s..and really took hold only after the fall literarydiscussions: The Earthly Powers is considered by many critics Burgess's finest novel. It was narrated by an 81-year-old successful, homosexual writer, Kenneth Toomey, a figure loosely based on W. Somerset Maugham. dreyfus_1906: have you read it? I haven't touched his other material literarydiscussions: frankly,... no , what i just learned was from google, but it sounds very interesting.... so you opened my mind to something new dreyfus_1906: I'm glad that's the case. dreyfus_1906: Speaking of Forster, do you like him? literarydiscussions: yes, it is hard to find someone serious and intelligent in yahoo chat rooms literarydiscussions: i am not familiar with foster,.... perhaps i should tell you what i have read and can speak about... so as not to frustrate you literarydiscussions: I recently read Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, and "The Crying of Lot 49" literarydiscussions: also, recently, Life of Pi, Yann Martel... dreyfus_1906: I'm still in the middle of gravity's Rainbow..well about 200 pages from the end really dreyfus_1906: I think it's genius literarydiscussions: The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Immortality, and Laughter and Forgetting, by Milan Kundera literarydiscussions: Also , recently The Great Gatsby, (and I saw a DVD) literarydiscussions: Silas Marner literarydiscussions: Lolita by Nabokov literarydiscussions: lots of hemingway as a teenager...including the Nick Adams short stories dreyfus_1906: well, let's talk about pynchon for a bit literarydiscussions: ok.. literarydiscussions: pynchon literarydiscussions: It seems easier (for me) to understand Postmodernism by reading Gravity's Rainbow, than to understand Gravity's Rainbow through a study of Postmodernism literarydiscussions: I ran out and purchased Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, because it is said to be the first postmodernist novel (18th century!) dreyfus_1906: What does it mean to be a postmodern novel..and how is Gravity's Rainbow postmodern? literarydiscussions: i will mention what Milan Kundera has said, that "a critic is someone who discovers other peoples discoveries" literarydiscussions: some have described Gravity's rainbow as entirely style, with no plot that is readily discernable.... dreyfus_1906: i thoroughly disagree literarydiscussions: and a postmodern novel is supposed to resemble hypertext links literarydiscussions: in that it strives not to be linear and temporal,... literarydiscussions: but, rather multidimensional... dreyfus_1906: but I'd like to think most good novels are multidimensional literarydiscussions: many people say that they have enormous difficulty reading or finishing gravity's rainbow... literarydiscussions: you make a good point... dreyfus_1906: and for the most part, gravity's rainbow is chronological in order with a few flashbacks here and then literarydiscussions: about many novels being multidimensional literarydiscussions: someone should address the question as to why War and Peace does not fit into the same Genre as Gravity's rainbow.... being large and complex... dreyfus_1906: I don't like fitting books into genres..especially those written by people who dislike the idea of genres literarydiscussions: i had to read war and peace in 1970,.... as a senior at St. Johns , Annapolis,... the so called 100 great books program dreyfus_1906: that book is like an essay-novel dreyfus_1906: story more being an argument in the essay than the essay as being garnishing for the novel literarydiscussions: yes... but, if it is the case that some scholars characterize gravity's rainbow, as postmodernist,... then it would be challanging to compare it with war and peace, and try to decide what holds true, and what does not.... and also, compare the two with tristram shandy literarydiscussions: your point about essay vs story, makes me think of milan kundera, the unbearable lightness of being... starting out so heavy, with Nietzsche's eternal return dreyfus_1906: i think there should first be a clear, established definition of being postmodern..as an aspect of a novel dreyfus_1906: yes..that book is like an essay too literarydiscussions: so heavy, in such a few pages... but then jumping into a narrative literarydiscussions: i love philosophy and symbolism... some people hate it dreyfus_1906: I have a narrow view of philosophy...I only consider analytic philosophy as philosophy literarydiscussions: i had an interesting experience yesterday... literarydiscussions: which you remind me of literarydiscussions: one of my favorite psychologists is Alfred Adler.. literarydiscussions: I took down his "What Life Could Mean For You"... and read the first page... literarydiscussions: he said that, for humans, nothing is considered in isolation, but only in relation to human life.... a stone is not simply a stone, but stone in the context of human life.... (corner stone, stumbling block, rock of gibraltar) literarydiscussions: and I was reminded of Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" , which is philosophy in theory, but often borders on being like a novel... literarydiscussions: where Sartre, for example, speaks of "the bronze of being"... literarydiscussions: and sartre seems to speak of things like stones, in a totally non human context.... literarydiscussions: for the first time, yesterday, i saw how sartre and adler are at different poles/extremes of the same spectrum literarydiscussions: but... back to pynchon and gravity's rainbow, for a moment... literarydiscussions: the greatest treasure that i found, personally... literarydiscussions: and remember milan kundera's words "a critic is one who discovers other peoples discoveries" |
| Guest |
literarydiscussions: so, i have seen myself sometimes, as a parasite or vulture,... digging into the carcass of someone else's work, to pull out some gem of an observation, and pride myself, as if it were my own
literarydiscussions: anyway.... in Gravity's Rainbow... literarydiscussions: there is a passage, a very poignant passage, which ends with the phrase... literarydiscussions: "the chances for mercy this year" literarydiscussions: well,... among english speakers... that construction is only used in the context of weather, rain literarydiscussions: what are the chances of rain... dreyfus_1906: yes, yes literarydiscussions: but, pynchon , brilliantly, subsitutes MERCY literarydiscussions: but.... a rainbow was the sign of gods covenant with noah... not to destroy mankind again literarydiscussions: and the rainbow is related to rain... literarydiscussions: and the covenant is mercy... literarydiscussions: but... GRAVITY'S rainbow is the rainbow made by the V2 rockets.... literarydiscussions: so... suddenly, for me, that little passage just opened up... literarydiscussions: opened up into an infinite world... literarydiscussions: a universe of worlds... literarydiscussions: now, admittedly, this may be my own eisagesis or reading into literarydiscussions: but, then, beauty is in the eye of the beholder literarydiscussions: so,.... for me... one may choose to read a novel only on a macroscopic level,... the story, the narrative... dreyfus_1906: i'd like to think the mercy of gravity's rainbow is its random nature..the poisson distribution..for the man of the present. there might be some higher order..some higher probability of following slothrop...but as long as that's unknown..you know. the whole deal is a bit religious literarydiscussions: but,... some novels have a microscopic level, in the paragraph, or even in the sentence or word dreyfus_1906: i have to go for a bit.. i'll see you around literarydiscussions: did you like our talk so far? dreyfus_1906: very literarydiscussions: good, hope i am not a bore, or boor |
| Sitaram |
dreyfus_1906 : do you remember me from two days ago? We talked about gravity's rainbow.
literarydiscussions: yes, indeed... dreyfus_1906 : I was wondering if you would like to revive that discussion literarydiscussions: let me look for my notes... i believe i save our chat literarydiscussions: here it is for you to review... http://literarydiscussions.myfreeforum.org/ftopic798.php dreyfus_1906 : all right. So should we continue our talk about the idea of mercy? literarydiscussions: yes,.... a fascinating aspect of pynchons book literarydiscussions: well, fascinating to me, in a selfish sense, since i feel as though i discovered it.... but as milan kundera contemptuously observes, critics are people who "discover" other people's discoveries literarydiscussions: so, because the point seems obscure, hidden, but not SO hidden that i did not see it,... therefore, it gives me the illusion of discovery, insight, authorship, ownership.... literarydiscussions: but this is a key feature or aspect of a great book.... literarydiscussions: i call it an "easter egg hunt" literarydiscussions: the author being the easter bunny, hidding treasures, and we, the children who hunt for them literarydiscussions: someone like pynchon writes on a microcosmic level..... each paragraph, well, certain paragraphs, are a micrososm of the entire novel, or some aspect of the novel, and may be considered in isolation, a world of their own dreyfus_1906 : I agree with you. I think the best works drag the reader into them, giving them an active role, allowing their interpretations and personal journeys through them to become an integral aspect of the art literarydiscussions: this post may be useful at some point... i just came across it while searching for something else i wrote about pynchon http://literarydiscussions.myfree.../ftopic600.php&highlight=kong dreyfus_1906 : thank you literarydiscussions: i am searching for something which may be most helpful, that i wrote dreyfus_1906 : now, regarding mercy. I saw it as the illusion of free will on account of the poisson distribution..the only result we can get empirically. literarydiscussions: aha, i found what i was looking for, here, at this other book forum, http://www.thebookforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7594 literarydiscussions: poisson distribution, i must think about this dreyfus_1906 : it's the distribution of the rocket sites dreyfus_1906 : and essentially of rain too literarydiscussions: the correlation between bombed sites, and the sexual conquests of slothrop literarydiscussions: but... you know... i am strangely reminded of a verse from Isaiah, though I do not mean to imply that this was in Pynchon's mind... dreyfus_1906 : go on literarydiscussions: it says "Just as I send the rain and the snow down, and they do not return to me until they have done their work, so also, I send forth my words, and they shall not return, until their work is accomplished" (paraphrased from memory) literarydiscussions: i am thinking of the entire nexus of causality literarydiscussions: and a sufi saying of Nasrudin, about causality literarydiscussions: the nasrudin teaching story is in this post, as well, http://literarydiscussions.myfree...pic437.php&highlight=nasrudin literarydiscussions: From the Sufi's, we read the following: "What is Fate?" Nasrudin was asked by a scholar. Nasrudin answered: "An endless succession of intertwined events, each influencing the other." The scholar objected, "That is hardly a satisfactory answer. I believe in cause and effect." literarydiscussions: "Very well," said Nasrudin, "look at that." He pointed to a procession passing in the street."That man is being taken to be hanged. Is that because someone gave him a silver piece and enabled him to buy the knife with which he committed the murder or because someone saw him do it or because nobody stopped him?" dreyfus_1906 : haha, that reminds me of tolstoy's argument against determinism..especially in matters of warfare dreyfus_1906 : in war and peace literarydiscussions: can you easily find that passage, i am interested literarydiscussions: War and Peace contrasts the “universal and all-important but delusive experience of free will, the feeling of responsibility, the values of private life generally, on one hand; and on the other, the reality of inexorable historical determinism, not indeed, experienced directly, but known to be true on irrefutable theoretical grounds” (p. 29). Tolstoy is unable, in the last analysis, to entirely discredit the historiography we know. Although the “important” people in history are less important than they believe themselves to be, neither are they shadows; individuals do have social purposes and they can transform the lives of communities dreyfus_1906 : I don't have the novel with me, but I believe one of the main thrusts of his essay portion is a proof that military strategies and historical research on sequence of causes are futile because of this difficulty in organizing all the little causes and effects literarydiscussions: The very idea of a unifying moral law to cover all the realities of experience presented Tolstoy with a lifelong paradox: Moral life with its sense of “responsibility, joys, sorrows, sense of guilt, achievement,” is illusory, since “free will” does not exist if we know—and theoretically we can know—the laws of necessity that govern every phenomenon and human activity. Faced with this paradox of believing in and yet denying free will, Tolstoy, like Prince Andrey, chooses nihilism and regarded the “first causes of events as mysterious, involving the reduction of human wills to nullity” (p. 55). literarydiscussions: http://education.yahoo.com/homewo...cliffsnotes/war_and_peace/75.html literarydiscussions: http://www.online-literature.com/...p/war_and_peace/364?term=freewill literarydiscussions: Chapter XI History examines the manifestations of man's free will in connection with the external world in time and in dependence on cause, that is, it defines this freedom by the laws of reason, and so history is a science only in so far as this free will is defined by those laws. The recognition of man's free will as something capable of influencing historical events, that is, as not subject to laws, is the same for history as the recognition of a free force moving the heavenly bodies would be for astronomy. That assumption would destroy the possibility of the existence of laws, that is, of any science whatever. If there is even a single body moving freely, then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negatived and no conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer literarydiscussions: . If any single action is due to free will, then not a single historical law can exist, nor any conception of historical events. For history, lines exist of the movement of human wills, one end of which is hidden in the unknown but at the other end of which a consciousness of man's will in the present moves in space, time, and dependence on cause. The more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more evident are the laws of that movement. To discover and define those laws is the problem of history. literarydiscussions: From the standpoint from which the science of history now regards its subject on the path it now follows, seeking the causes of events in man's freewill, a scientific enunciation of those laws is impossible, for however man's free will may be restricted, as soon as we recognize it as a force not subject to law, the existence of law becomes impossible. Only by reducing this element of free will to the infinitesimal, that is, by regarding it as an infinitely small quantity, can we convince ourselves of the absolute inaccessibility of the causes, and then instead of seeking causes, history will take the discovery of laws as its problem. literarydiscussions: The search for these laws has long been begun and the new methods of thought which history must adopt are being worked out simultaneously with the self-destruction toward which- ever dissecting and dissecting the causes of phenomena- the old method of history is moving. All human sciences have traveled along that path. Arriving at infinitesimals, mathematics, the most exact of sciences, abandons the process of analysis and enters on the new process of the integration of unknown, infinitely small, quantities. Abandoning the conception of cause, mathematics seeks law, that is, the property common to all unknown, infinitely small, elements. literarydiscussions: In another form but along the same path of reflection the other sciences have proceeded. When Newton enunciated the law of gravity he did not say that the sun or the earth had a property of attraction; he said that all bodies from the largest to the smallest have the property of attracting one another, that is, leaving aside the question of the cause of the movement of the bodies, he expressed the property common to all bodies from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. The same is done by the natural sciences: leaving aside the question of cause, they seek for laws. History stands on the same path. And if history has for its object the study of the movement of the nations and of humanity and not the narration of episodes in the lives of individuals, it too, setting aside the concep literarydiscussions: And if history has for its object the study of the movement of the nations and of humanity and not the narration of episodes in the lives of individuals, it too, setting aside the conception of cause, should seek the laws common to all the inseparably interconnected infinitesimal elements of free will. dreyfus_1906 : I think these passages are sufficient to demonstrate his thoughts on the matter literarydiscussions: I have long been fascinated by a point made, regarding the very random behavior of any given molecule of gas, or radioactive molecule,.... in contrast to the totally predictable laws which the container of gas, or the radioactive mass as a whole, obeys, with regard to temperature or pressure or half-life literarydiscussions: fear not, I was not about to quote all of War and Peace literarydiscussions: it is like tolstoy buried a little essay within his novel dreyfus_1906 : yes, and these thoughts against determinism was brought to an even higher level dreyfus_1906 : in anna karenina dreyfus_1906 : where the very idea of causes becomes a mere illusion fabricated by our education..the narratives we read..that anyone who believes and lives by them are no more than don quixotes dreyfus_1906 : I am also interested in statistical mechanics dreyfus_1906 : my educational training has been predominantly scientific literarydiscussions: http://www.online-literature.com/...hp/anna_karenina/229?term=freedom literarydiscussions: from Anna Karenina dreyfus_1906 : anna karenina is a much more subtle work. literarydiscussions: yes, not as easy to find an essay on freewill dreyfus_1906 : but I'd like to think the entire book is on it...that and the problem of suicide literarydiscussions: Their ideas seemed to him fruitful when he was reading or was himself seeking arguments to refute other theories, especially those of the materialists; but as soon as he began to read or sought fat himself a solution of problems, the same thing always happened. As long as he followed the fixed definition of obscure words such as spirit, will, freedom, essence, purposely letting himself go into the snare of words the philosophers set for him, he seemed to comprehend something. But he had only to forget the artificial train of reasoning, and to turn from life itself to what had satisfied him while thinking in accordance with the fixed definitions, and all this artificial edifice fell to pieces at once like a house of cards, and it became clear that the edifice had been built up out of those literarydiscussions: built up out of those transposed words, apart from anything in life more important than reason. dreyfus_1906 : yes, that's a good passage..about Levin's studies? literarydiscussions: chapter 9 literarydiscussions: At one time, reading Schopenhauer, he put in place of his will the word love, and for a couple of days this new philosophy charmed him, till he removed a little away from it. But then, when he turned from life itself to glance at it again, it fell away too, and proved to be the same muslin garment with no warmth in it. literarydiscussions: His brother Sergey Ivanovitch advised him to read the theological works of Homiakov. Levin read the second volume of Homiakov's works, and in spite of the elegant, epigrammatic, argumentative style which at first repelled him, he was impressed by the doctrine of the church he found in them. He was struck at first by the idea that the apprehension of divine truths had not been vouchsafed to man, but to a corporation of men bound together by love--to the church. dreyfus_1906 : despite that about schopenhauer, I think his philosophy is pervasive in this work dreyfus_1906 : especially his idea of beauty dreyfus_1906 : which I believe tolstoy offers as a resolution literarydiscussions: What delighted him was the thought how much easier it was to believe in a still existing living church, embracing all the beliefs of men, and having God at its head, and therefore holy and infallible, and from it to accept the faith in God, in the creation, the fall, the redemption, than to begin with God, a mysterious, far-away God, the creation, etc. But afterwards, on reading a Catholic writer's history of the church, and then a Greek orthodox writer's history of the church, and seeing that the two churches, in their very conception infallible, each deny the authority of the other, Homiakov's doctrine of the church lost all its charm for him, and this edifice crumbled into dust like the philosophers' edifices. dreyfus_1906 : to the nihilism of a causeless, senseless universe literarydiscussions: good stuff,... thanks for pointing the way dreyfus_1906 : thank you for retreiving that passage. it's been a few years since I touched that work literarydiscussions: i prayed to lord google literarydiscussions: such prayers are always answered literarydiscussions: but, one must know the proper way to pray (search) literarydiscussions: ha ha dreyfus_1906 : I don't use the engine much literarydiscussions: i use it constantly literarydiscussions: oddly enough, i use it to find things i wrote 5 years ago |
| Sitaram |
literarydiscussions: these "ideas" we banty about, are possibly "weapons of mass destruction" to obliterate the ideological enemies of theocracies, dictatorship,.... since such ideas explode in the minds of young people, who are on the internet, and sproute blades of freedom |
| Sitaram |
dreyfus_1906 : have you read Allen Bloom?
dreyfus_1906 : Closing of the American Mind? literarydiscussions: yes... a long time ago literarydiscussions: http://literarydiscussions.myfree.../ftopic253.php&highlight=sean dreyfus_1906 : Although he doesn't offer any philosophical refutation of cultural relativity...i agree that it is the lazy man's choice to rely on it always as if it were writ on stone dreyfus_1906 : and perhaps a symptom of democracy..the bad symptom as described by Plato in the republic literarydiscussions: actually, the link i gave you only makes reference to the sean dialogues.... i found them and posted them here http://literarydiscussions.myfreeforum.org/ftopic808.php literarydiscussions: ha ha, it occurs to me that not even stone is written in stone literarydiscussions: this too shall pass dreyfus_1906 : haha |
| Sitaram |
Oracle of Delphi: hi what are you discussing today?
literarydiscussions: well, i can never really seem to get a discussion going in those yahoo chat rooms... literarydiscussions: on my message board, you can click on the name SITARAM (me) and click on DISPLAY ALL POSTS, and see the most recent posts Oracle of Delphi: yeah..that;s true...flitting attention spans literarydiscussions: here is an interesting recent dialogue on postmodernism, gravity's rainbow, and war & peace http://literarydiscussions.myfreeforum.org/ftopic798.php literarydiscussions: that is why i feel message boards are superior to chat rooms... literarydiscussions: you can capture something of value, detail, depth, and it can be enjoyed repeatedly, by many Oracle of Delphi: i agree... Oracle of Delphi: i lie what i am reading... literarydiscussions: like... thanks Oracle of Delphi: yeah you got that..i just finished Zadie Smiths 'On Beauty'...you know that's what i would call..super stylised, ultra witty literary trash... literarydiscussions: yes, there is depth, and then, there is the pretense of depth Oracle of Delphi: yeah...and when you have a half good looking woman on the jacket, these days the book hits the booker circuit literarydiscussions: it is wisdom to have made Sophia and Hochma feminine literarydiscussions: long before the advent of dust jackets Oracle of Delphi: there you go...i personally prefer the dead authors..at least they don't have spin doctors puking PR bytes literarydiscussions: the innocence of antiquity literarydiscussions: the unpretentious innocence of antiquity Oracle of Delphi: yes... and some... Oracle of Delphi: this gravity's rainbow..haven't read it Oracle of Delphi: will pick it up..soon Oracle of Delphi: are you into crime books literarydiscussions: oh... gravity.. it is the same throughout literarydiscussions: it will not "pick up" as you say, it is an acquired taste Oracle of Delphi has signed out. (11/27/2005 9:21 AM) |