I’ve been posting details at our Pynchon blog on a weird reading of Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day as a card game, or set of card games, in which the book’s characters are unaware that they’re playing cards. At 700 pages in I’m beginning to think the book might be a single card game, and not several, and I’m suspecting that it’s Solitaire, though I don’t play the game myself, so I’m out on a limb.
The possibility being that Thomas Pynchon might have written out his characters, given them plot lines, and then played a game of cards, inventing the connections as required by his need to create four of a kind, arrangements by suit, numerical order, etc. As if he had taken the challenge of post-modernism to heart, to unwrite the writing of the book, and to realize the “thrown-ness” of being by bringing his characters to life as he turns cards over and places them with others. If this were the case, the book’s writing was “in the cards,” arbitrary but fated, a world of possible books, but in which the one we are given is the one that was necessary. If we just tender this proposition, that Thomas Pynchon wished to write a book that could be written by chance, that might be about Life and Ideas in the abstract and general but that would take specific form not through authorial authority alone, he might have written it by playing cards with his own book It’s entirely possible. To write as God and the universe, but to include an element of blind luck or fate in the writing itself, but throwing down card upon card and thus allowing narrative construction to fall out of the game play. There’s still a third of the book to go, but for now I’m thrilled to bits with this possibility.
If you’re reading the book, page and thematic references are over that our Emanating Against the Day, by Thomas Pynchon blog.
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I read your recent Emanating blog post, and “zero cards left to play” is an apt definition of enlightenment.
That’s full enlightenment, though, not awakening which is simply the recognition that there is a game afoot and roughly the cognition of the game’s rules of play (before awakening characters aren’t entirely cognizant they’re involved in a game.)
I’d wager that Pynchon is awake myself.
Anyhow, as characters begin to catch on to the game, they will have this sense of deju vu more often because the game within time and space has been unfolding for a very very long time over many seemingly individual lifetimes.
Reading “No Boundary” by Ken Wilber might shed more depth on to the themes of Being and matter, time and aether/space, and ‘eternal return’ too.
Even though it makes no logical sense, I’m definitely starting to read Against the Day as soon as I get back from Sundance.
I dont know if he’s enlightened or not, but i dont think that’s the issue here. Not familiar with KW but the themes of the book are very clearly indicated, and I think founded in major philosophical schools of thought, but thanks for the recommendation. For now I think I’ve got that angle covered.
One key point here is nothing, not even enlightenment, provides a line of escape from the fundamental decay of life, in matter, time, and pynchon’s favorite topic, energy. I may be wrong but I dont think Pynchon’s suddenly joined the higher consciousness gang. It simply wouldn’t be his style. He’s always been a paranoid master of the gonzo, interested in the world more than in spiritual dimensions. Pynchon writes with an analytic and he’s always packing all manner of arms, not to mention a film camera, canvas, easel, note pad, and jacket pockets full of pharmacopia. I dont recognize pynchon in the pynchon you describe. Read it and you’ll see what i mean.
I didn’t say Pynchon was enlightened, just awake in the sense I defined, and other friends that have actually read his works have speculated as such too.
For instance, David Lynch, could be awake too.
Awakening has nothing to do with hanging out with the higher consciousness crowd, or any particular clique for that matter, or delving into other dimensions, or escaping the world. It’s right here. It’s simply coming to a realization of the game of reality. Like Neo taking the red pill.
And yes, yes, I’ll read it myself.