Thomas Pynchon and the Postmodern Mythology of the Underworld

355 Pages·2013·2.477 MB·English

by  Pynchon, Thomas, Smith, Evans Lansing, Pynchon, Thomas

Thomas Pynchon and
the Postmodern Mythology
of the Underworld
Yoshinobu Hakutani
General Editor

Vol. 62

PETER LANG
New York (cid:121) Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:121) Bern
Frankfurt (cid:121) Berlin (cid:121) Brussels (cid:121) Vienna (cid:121) Oxford
Evans Lansing Smith

Thomas Pynchon and
the Postmodern Mythology
of the Underworld

PETER LANG
New York (cid:121) Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:121) Bern
Frankfurt (cid:121) Berlin (cid:121) Brussels (cid:121) Vienna (cid:121) Oxford
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Evans Lansing.
Thomas Pynchon and the postmodern mythology of the underworld /
Evans Lansing Smith.
p. cm. — (Modern American literature: new approaches; v. 62)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Pynchon, Thomas—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Voyages to the otherworld
in literature. 3. Gnosticism in literature. 4. Mythology in literature. I. Title.
PS3566.Y55Z884 813’.54—dc23 2012031428
ISBN 978-1-4331-2027-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4539-0951-5 (e-book)
ISSN 1078-0521

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Printed in Germany
For my Beloved Cheryle:
Belle Dame avec Merci

Table of Contents

Introduction: Necrotypes and Postmodernism................................................1

Chapter One: V................................................................................................7

Chapter Two: The Crying of Lot 49..............................................................45

Chapter Three: Gravity’s Rainbow...............................................................65

Chapter Four: Mason & Dixon....................................................................171

Chapter Five: Against the Day....................................................................215

Works Cited................................................................................................329

Index...........................................................................................................337

Introduction: Necrotypes and Postmodernism

One of the most important metaphors of the High Classical Modernism of
the first quarter of the 20th century combines the reduction of molecular
compounds to their fundamental elements (reductio) with a return to origins
(ricorso). An alchemical analogy is implied: the breakdown of molecules to
those elements which may be recombined to create new forms. This meta-
phor manifests itself in the archaeology (digs in Egypt, Crete, and Mesopo-
tamia), science (nuclear and sub-atomic physics) and, linguistics (deep struc-
tures, signifiers and signifieds), anthropology (myth and ritual theory), psy-
chology (complexes and archetypes), painting (geometric abstraction) and
literature (myth and folklore) of Modernism—for they all entail a search for
elemental forms beneath the surface of things, in the underworld, as it were.
For nearly all of the most important Modernists, myths were regarded as the
fundamental building blocks of larger poetic, dramatic, and fictional struc-
tures.
Indeed, T.S. Eliot’s “mythical method” remains the most enduring leg-
acy of the Modernists writing before World War II to the Postmodernists
writing afterwards. I use the term Postmodernism historically, and culturally.
Historically, it refers to literature written since the end of the World War II
which employs the “mythical method” of Modernist literature written before
it. Eliot’s famous method uses myth to confer “shape and significance” upon
the “anarchy and futility” of history. The method involves a sustained paral-
lel between the realistic details of daily life, and an undercurrent of mytho-
logical symbolism. Modernism’s “mythical method” is Postmodernism’s
point of departure.
The most important myths in Modernism and Postmodernism include
the labyrinth, the Great Goddess, the apocalypse, and various aspects of
hermeticism (Kabbalah and alchemy). The single most important of these,
however—whether modernist or postmodernist—is the nekyia, a Homeric
term for the descent to the underworld. The variations on the myth are stag-
gering: there is not a single major figure of the 20th century who does not at
some point refer to the myth in one or more major works.
The Modern and Postmodernist underworld can be conceived as a man-
sion with four chambers: crypt, inferno, temenos, and cornucopia. As a