Re: Marshall McLuhan & Pynchon

YES!

This has GOT to be a major connection that is little explored around here
(unless of course P came out and said otherwise somehow).  One thing I think
that may be overlooked in P interp lately (at least on the List) is its
position in the time and place of its publishing date.  V, COL49 and even GR
are in the midst of MMs (the real Eminem) most grandiose insights and
blatherings which had a
HUGE impact at the time and has since been mostly forgotten in the public
mind and left to the realm of Media and Politics undergrad courses.  This is
also true of Harold Innis to a lesser extent, but these ideas of information
delivery and how new media innovations correspond to overall human
interaction and perhaps even the hard wiring of the brain...(!)  I'm more of
a fellow traveller than a P scholar (puuleeze!) but I think some of the crit
I've scanned mentions these connections (see : A Hand to Turn Time?)

At any rate, I originally didn't want to post this half baked obs but recent
List conduct left me feeling obligated to acknowledge the efforts of Hunter,
which were not ignored.  There are lots of us below decks.  Maybe if more of
us posted even our less than academic grade musings on things literary the
other stuff would be consigned to an amusing sideshow...  and its is... err,
amusing... or musing.... what time is it anyway?

Also, please keep the Summer Reading List in mind.  It started out OK, but
things spiralled, as they are wont to do round 'ere.   Lets not be
intimidated... no one is going to puch us in the nose.   Boquita?  That you?
T-Terrance? OW MY NOSE!


----- Original Message -----
From: Hunter Felt <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 12:26 AM
Subject: Marshall McLuhan & Pynchon


> Hello, I've lurking here in the last, jeez, year and a half or so, and
> usually don't have much to add, but I've been reading Marshall McLuhan's
> "Understanding Media:  The Extensions of Man," and he seems to be working
> with some of the same ideas that Pynchon uses in his novels, and I wonder
if
> anyone sees the connections.
>
> Now, I'm only half-way through, and so far it seems like an interesting
> mixture of legimate insights and pure baloney.  However, his exploration
of
> technology and media as a projection of mankind, and his description of
the
> ways different media change and transform human society and even human
> consciousness seem to be similar to at least one of Pynchon's projects
> throughout his writing career.  I'm not saying Pynchon agrees (or has even
> read) "Understanding Media" (although considering the book's popularity
with
> 1960's intellectuals and psuedo-intellectuals, it's not inconceivable that
> he has), but I think that they are working with some of the same subjects
> during the same time period, so I find a lot of parallels.
>
> Although McLuhan clearly exagerrates the importance of the way media (from
> spoken language to automation, which I'm eager to reach) has shaped
society,
> I think he at least is working along the same line of Pynchon in some
> respects.  In "V," Pynchon deals with the closing devide between human
> beings and machines (McLuhan uses the Narcissus myth to illustrate
> humankind's inabililty to see technology and media as extentions of
> ourselves).  "Crying of Lot 49," is, among many other things, an extended
> investigation into the ramifications of postal systems, and, in general,
> methods of transmitting information (from radio to television to movies to
> letters to Jacobean revenge plays).  "Gravity's Rainbow" deals with just
> about everything, and lays particular emphasis on the connections between
> humans and the technology they create (at the end, Gottfried and the
Rocket
> become one).  "Vineland" deals explicitly with the effects of television.
> "Mason & Dixon" goes back in time and explores the beginning of American
> society, when the technologies that have shaped modern society were in
their
> infancy.
>
> (Of course that's not what these novels are "about," but one cannot deny
> that the relationship between humanity and its technology is very
important
> for Pynchon.  As it has been for just about every writer.)
>
> I think that McLuhan, on occasion, hits upon subjects that find their way
> into Pynchon's fiction:
>
> "Just as when information levels rise in physics and chemistry, it is
> possible to use anything for fuel or fabric or building material, so with
> electric technology all solid goods can be summoned to appear as solid
> commodities by means of information circuits set up in the organic
patterns
> that we call "automation" and information retrieval.  Under electric
> technology the entire business of man becomes learning and knowing.  In
> terms of what we still consider an "economy" (the Greek word of a
> household), this means that all forms of wealth result from the movement
of
> information.  The problem of discovering occupations or employment may
prove
> as difficult as wealth is easy."
> - "Media as Translators"  Understanding Media, Signet Classic paperback,
> 1966. p.65.
>
> "By continuously embracing technologies, we relate ourselves to them as
> servomechanisms."
> - "The Gadget Lovers."  p. 55
>
> Plus, McLuhan discusses the impact of technologies on tribal cultures,
which
> may shed light on the plight of the Hereros in "V" and "Gravity's
Rainbow."
> He parallels the plight of tribes coping with the introductiong of the
> written word with modern man unable to cope with modern technology:    "We
> are no more prepared to encounter radio and TV in our literate milieu than
> the native of Ghana is able to cope with the literacy that takes him out
of
> his collective tribal world and beaches him in individual isolation.  We
are
> as numb in our new electric world as the native involved in our literate
and
> mechanical culture."  p. 31.
>
> And I think McLuhan's most relevant point deals with how excessive
> information and technology "numbs" the human mind, which I think might be
> reflected in the emotionally detached fiction that has been dubbed
> "post-modern."  The overload of information is not only one of Pynchon's
> themes, it's one of his techniques (how else can one justify the much
> too-muchness of "Gravity's Rainbow.")  The massive amount of information
can
> distance one further and further from The Truth (the communicative
property
> of entropy in "Entropy.")
>
> There's billions of other parallels, but I just wanted to throw this out
> there.
>
> - Hunter A. Felt
>
>
>
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