Before you get too deep into the chaos of the Zone, it's worth thinking a little bit about paranoia and what it means in this novel. Tantivy talks to Slothrop about "operational paranoia" (25) in a wartime context -- but doesn't GR suggest that all of modern life is the hermeneutic equivalent of war?
One of my longstanding thoughts about Gravity's Rainbow is that it's a fictional interrogation of the differences between paranoia and thought, and that it has trouble distinguishing between those things.
Or, as the man says on the first page, "this is not a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into--"
"Oh, that was no 'found' crab, Ace -- no random octopus or girl, uh-uh. Structure and detail come later, but the conniving around him now he feels instantly, in his heart" (188).
Thoughts here:
ReplyDelete(1) Reread the Tantivy conversation. 'Operational' striking me as being used in the sense of "functional" as opposed to "functioning," although I guess that's not too different. So if hermeneutics is the study of how texts are understood, you're saying modern life is like the war we see in GR, or like the war that comes to mind when I say the word to my grandpa? I think I'm sort of confused with this statement because at least how I see it, GR makes a play from the outset to change our notions of "war" altogether [regardless of whether or not so-called 'accuracy' was part of that desire (which I'm willing to say it was)].
Either way, does this concept of 'operational paranoia' imply that paranoia, via war, has become useful (or even integral) to survival in the modern world, in the sense that all that led to the war, and the measures taken during the war will not die with the war, will continue into the "peace"? Like the way Slothrop's paranoia keeps him alive in Switzerland (hopping out the window and all that (260-abouts).)
I have a gut feeling that I agree with this, but I think it does make a difference whether we mean "war" more typically (i.e., a violent, ruthless toll on the bodies and minds of nations, but tangible and unifying/-ied) or in a more Pynchonesque way (i.e., a violent ruthless toll on the individual, abstractly and always alienating). I don't know if that makes sense, or is even faithful to my own reading.
(2) As for the paranoia/thought idea, I can see that. What I'm wondering about now though is whether or not this difficulty in separating one from the other is a result of the war, is the war, is the cause of the war, etc. I think this is all complicated as well by the frequent invasions (or possibly reminders?) of a Hollywood-ism and/or a dream factor. I think the nature of dreams, and the function of the dream (be it daydream, nighttime dream, drug-induced dream, et al.) in the novel is essential in figuring out whether or not we can separate thought from paranoia, and if so, how.
After the scene with Katje and Grigori on the beach, Slothrop surveys the beach and we get "Here it is again, that identical-looking Other World -- are we gonna have THIS to worry about?" (228) The world populated by dreams is not different than the "real" world because it looks different...it's different because all things are (a) intensely 'of the self' (coming from the dreamer) and (b) thus, meaningful. Isn't this how we define paranoia? -- the 'delusion' that everything is somehow specific to the self, and linked (ergo, meaningful)?
Gonna post a short(er) thing on Part II later tonight, although I will have entered the Zone by then.
Matt