Title: | The word, the self, and the underground estate of pierce inverarity in Thomas Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49" |
Authors: | Dziedzic, Piotr |
Keywords: | tożsamość; własność; filozofia; identity; property; philosophy |
Issue Date: | 2002 |
Publisher: | Katowice : Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego |
Citation: | W. Kalaga, T. Rachwał (red.), "(Trans)-formations I : identity and property : essays in cultural practice" (S. 62-71). Katowice : Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego |
Abstract: | "Not least among the possible forms of dychotomization to which Pynchon’s
fiction lends itself is the division into the “overground” realm of the visible
and various forms of the underground. Thus in V., Benny Profane, tired of the
street, the spurious alternative to the hot-house of paranoid speculation and
a metaphysical cul-de-sac, is offered a chance to try his luck under the arid
thoroughfares of the West: he literally climbs down under the streets of New
York, and his peregrinations in the sewers of this city are not free of anticipatory
desire for some sort of soteriological revelation. On a less literal level,
Malta, with its supposedly rich deposits of myth and ancient wisdom, stands
in opposition to the superficiality of a civilization where people tend to oscillate
between self-induced mindlessness and self-created façades. Godolphin
makes his terrible discovery under the gaudy skin of reality, and Stencil’s quest
centers upon a conspiracy whose alleged aim is to undermine the metaphysical
foundations of the West. In all cases, whether they are imagined or real,
and whether their message appears to be hope-inspiring or frightening, Pynchon’s
murky underworlds lure with the promise of transcendence, of going
beyond the predictable mendacities of daylight." (fragm.) |
URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12128/12496 |
ISBN: | 83-226-1207-9 |
Appears in Collections: | Książki/rozdziały (W.Hum.)
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