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questions pas de pynchoniens [submissions now closed] (Patreon)

Published:
2020-06-19 04:36:24
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Thanks for the kind reaction to those Pynchon Q&As.  If I can find it in me to follow it up, I figured my absence might make a general Q&A worthwhile, so whatever questions you've got about anything, pound off in the comments.

1312

MSJ

Comments

Anonymous

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Operation Gladio in general and applied to the US, and also I suppose through Vineland

Anonymous

any general thoughts on the "anti-woke left" phenomenon?

Tony

What does Pynchon mean by "the *act* of naming" in GR? Also, Pynchon's work is excellent for many reasons, his incredible prescience among them. Who are the prophets and oracles in 2020, in your opinion?

Ryan Kane

On a lighter note, any thoughts on the NBA opening up for a limited capacity play in tournament and playoffs at Disney world Orlando... and do the Sacramento kings have any chance of sneaking in? On a more serious note, what do you think about the prospect for a kind of low level U.S. civil war (if that framing is even applicable) driven by stochastic acts of violence and the increasing prevalence of militias movements and right wing conspiracy theories, particularly if trump loses in November?

Ryan Kane

Also would love to hear an episode or at least some scattered thoughts on Walter Benjamin's work which I know you've referenced in the past.

Madra na Móna

Would you have any recommendations for support material for Finnegans Wake? I plan to read Vico and "Our Exagmination..." but I don't really know where to turn outside of that. Any expansion on Joycean totality/infinity would be appreciated. Outside of 20th century literature, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on William Blake, Laurence Sterne, Robert Burton or Sir Thomas Browne.

Jack Lawrence

What are your thoughts on the work of J.H. Prynne? You've mentioned him in brief a few times and some of your writing reminds me of Prynne, so I was wondering how familiar you are with him. Also, do you have any advice on how to best read his poetry?

Tribulation 49
>>38895500

We need an MSJ/Matt Christman crossover - the Inebriated Past is Just Around the Corner..?

Anonymous

In your post-solar history episode, you mentioned how modernism recapitulated or recovered pre-alphabetic writing systems. I was wondering if you could elaborate. Also, you posted an excellent introductory guide into Frank Zappa’s music on Twitter. Hoping you can expand on this as well as more in-depth thoughts on Ben Watson’s The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play.

Anonymous

So happy to hear your voice again doing new shows. My question: do you have a theory about who Crypto Cuttlefish is/was and why they disappeared? What’s your opinion of the Cuttlefish oeuvre and do you think the Pynchon parts hint at an answer to GR’s “in the years 1966-1971 I tasted my first blood”?

Biels Nohr

A huge theme for many of the artists you've talked about is technological advancement leaving us weak and alienated from ourselves and each other, especially in the past few decades. But post-WWII American tech, especially medical technology, has done wonderful things for us as well. Looking forward and assuming we're not too late to fix this society/planet, how do we advance our theories and technology without digging our own graves??

_Foxaru

I was reading into Psychogeography in relation to Iain Sinclair's work and I got the distinct impression from certain quotes from Debord that the the entire thing was sort of partially conceived as an elaborate drunken shitpost; do you think that shitposting serves as an important driver for literary development?

_Foxaru

Also if you'd heard or read any interesting stories about the CIAs use of cryptographic puzzles distributed in public?

Jonathan Schultz

A Pynchon related question: Given that a number of characters and families appear throughout many of Pynchon's novels - Pig & Fenderbelly Bodine, the Rideout & Traverse families, Mondaugen and Blicero - what do you make of the implied continuity throughout all or some of Pynchon's novels? It appears there are at least two fictional universes of his work - for lack of a better term - that of the V, GR, CoL49, M&D series and the Vineland, AtD, and IV series, is Pynchon exploring space just to the side of certain places or times? I would also be curious if you have any general thoughts on the state of textual art in the Internet era. So much of our virtual social lives are textual, and yet there seems to be an aversion towards literary expression in general. Is there anything to be made from the apparent simultaneous proliferation of written or typed words and their growing more depthless and informal - I am thinking, for instance, of the difference in tone & forumlation between the average email and letters home from the US Civil War? (It may well be I am merely an angry old man showing my crusty distaste for the ways of young people.)

Anonymous

A couple of questions if that's okay: You mentioned Bruno Schulz in the first of these new QnA's - what's your take on him and his body of work? Has it influenced yours? I haven't heard you mention Cormac McCarthy before. What is your opinion of his work, especially one of my all-time favorites, Suttree? Finally, though I can't remember which episode it was, you talked for a minute or two about how American moral high ground during WWII was in fact much more dubious than we've now generally mythologized it to be. Would you say that expounding on this would be worth an episode? It's great to have you back. (2^5)*41

Anonymous

(Seems my comment got deleted or wasn't posted, so apologize if this comes up twice) You've been asked about AtD before and I get the sense it's not exactly episode-worthy but I still wanted to take a swing at a couple questions regarding that one. Do you think there is a coded meaning behind Shambhala, much like the concepts you've covered in GR? Secret knowledge, mathematical or otherwise? Enlightenment that threatens the world order? All the vested interests seeking out the mythical city had me wondering about that. (Side note: that recent news blurb about "cosmic rays" coming out of the earth in Antarctica made me think of AtD IMMEDIATELY). Would also love to hear your thoughts on how the Tunguska Event is portrayed in the book. That always read to me like a pre-cursor to the nuclear bomb idea; the world has now entered a different, sinister timeline and there is no way to course-correct. Regarding music, I wondered if you had anything to say about The Kinks. I think their class conscious politics they embody in things like Lola Vs Powerman and The Moneygoround, or the more overt "Money and Corruption" on Preservation Act 1 are sometimes overlooked. I know they're not as dense or multi-tiered as Bowie, but I don't often hear people talk about that aspect of the band. Thanks so much for bringing back the pod.

Anonymous

I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on 2666 and other Bolano works, thoroughly enjoyed the recent episodes, thank you

Dangus

any insight into Crowley and other occult figures like him? I have some strange tangential hippie friends whove mentioned him before and it seemed like something you might know about.

Anonymous
>>38940747

Also, I second the idea of a Jack Parsons episode (I think that was brought up in the recent q&a?)

Wasabi Debacle

How much do you think politics is affected by things happening behind the scenes like blackmail, threats, and other forms of coercion beyond simple corruption? I feel like no one talks about this possibility when politicians and other influential people seem to “sell out” or water down their message.... like, is it really unimaginable that someone like Bernie could be coerced through dirty tricks into becoming a kind of controlled opposition? His campaign made a lot of obvious mistakes in the race and now he’s really turned against his supporters in a lot of ways, is it far fetched to believe he could be getting pressure we’re not aware of? Now I’m thinking of the bill hicks bit about the deep state sitting the president down once he’s elected, showing him new footage of JFK’s assassination from the grassy knoll and then asking, “any questions?”

Anonymous
>>38901649

John Bishop's Joyce's Book of the Dark is the best work about Finnegan's Wake I know of. We just lost Bishop this year, and I never met him, but he was a beloved teacher by those who knew him.

Anonymous

Love the show. Is there any evidence of Schopenhauer’s influence on Pynchon as early as Gravity’s Rainbow? The action of the book seems to parallel Schopenhauer’s concept of a striving, pointless, suffering-inducing Will. Meanwhile the aesthetic experience of reading the book, which is devoid of typically empirical plot and character features, provides the reader an opportunity for pure contemplation. As Schopenhauer says, this is exactly the type of aesthetic experience that allows the reader access to deeper truths about reality.

BobbyMilk

I just got my paperback copy of Chaos by Tom O’Neill....if you’ve read it I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!

Anonymous

What do you make of bleeding edge, specifically its approach to paranoiac and conspiratorial thinking in contemporary times? It doesn’t seem to me to have the specificity and depth of analysis that GR, 49, or even some of the other later works have. Is this because Pynchon just doesn’t have access to as much inside information as he did earlier in his career, or because the conspiracy has grown so large that it’s impossible to talk about it in the same ways, or simply that he’s slacking off in his old age?