Sunday, November 7, 2010
IN CLASS POSTING
Since so many of you are way behind on your postings, I am going to have you ALL write a response to a question on Pynchon tomorrow in class. It will count towards your blog posts and it will receive a check-plus, check, check-minus, or zero. Make sure to be caught up on your reading!
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To Read the novel in comparison to the Maxwell Demon Machine
ReplyDeleteThe Maxwell Demon, as described by Koteks is “a tiny intelligence…[it] sat and sorted” (68). The Maxwell Demon system itself, “you wouldn’t have put any real work into,” Koteks explained (68). When described, the machine is misleading in context, “the Nefastis Machine contained an honest-to-God Maxwell’s Demon” (68). However, how can something be “honest-to-Go” when numerous individuals have no faith in such an omnipotent presence? When compared to reading the novel itself, no individual can believe there is an absolute truth to be found and understood, if there is no possibility of an absolute truth to exist.
It is explained “two fields [that] were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell’s Demon” (84). The Maxwell Demon acts as a tissue that connects two different entities or thoughts. By connecting two entirely different ideologies or “fields,” the Maxwell Demon acts as the small symbols and information dribbled throughout the novel that connects one moment to another. The novel, in context, is in fractions. These fractions need to be connected by something otherwise they would stand-alone and have no possibility of any meaning or use. When reading the novel, we, as the audience, act as the sorter. We must separate the fast and slow molecules, or pieces of information, to determine what is valid, important and vital to our understanding. Although the system “was said to lose entropy,” or information, it was “offset by the information the Demon gained” (84). This mimics readers as we lose information, or get lost in the novel, but new information is gained as the novel progresses.
“One little movement, against all that massive complex of information” is all a reader needs to begin new understandings, or quests for truth while reading the novel. One small movement, or piece of information, is enough to bait readers to want to know, understand, and seek truth.
The novel in itself, like the Maxwell Demon machine, is misleading. Readers want a truth to exist, or want the Maxwell Demon to exist, but it is entirely possible that no truth or Demon exists in the novel. We, as readers, are led to believe the Demon does exist if noticed by sensitive individuals. But how are we to know of its true existence, if we cannot devote all of our senses to seek out the demon, if we must focus on another image.
“’Watch the picture,’ said Nefastis, ‘and concentrate on a cylinder. Don’t worry. If you’re sensitive you’ll know which one. Leave your mind open, receptive to the Demon’s message…’” (85). This quote epitomizes readers’ process of reading the novel. We as readers must leave our minds open to the possibilities, but our mind can be clouded by the façade of what we believe is to be the essence of the novel. We must seek information, not truth, we must never devote ourselves to one want or we will not gain any understanding in the novel at all.
Maxwell's demon machine becomes a metaphor for the process of reading the novel in a very subtle way. The process in which the machine reciprocates information into the "sensitive" like the way Oedipa takes in all information and sort sit out by the characters she meets. Oedipa embarks on this "quest" to obtain a massive amount of information, equally random as it is scattered amongst characters. After she collects all this data, she then must sort through it all to find the next string of clues to lead her to the next mass of information regarding the mystery she's investigating.
ReplyDeleteOedipa is also riding on the possibility of the conspiracy to even exists. She sets off on this quest unknowingly aware of the fact that there wont be any resolve but she does it for the bare essence of the quest. To get something out of nothing, to gain purpose through gathered information, even if it all adds up to nothing. The quest in itself, like the machine, functions, causing motion that ceases to end. A quest that saves Oedipa from the mundane. "Getting something for nothing, causing perpetual motion." (Pynchon 68). The machine also plays off Oedipa's perception like the book itself plays off the readers by tossing around mass amounts of redundant, in-depth detail.
The watched pot never boils. But when you're Oedpida Mass, what's the harm in staring at the photo of a "Scotch scientist who had postulated a tiny intelligence" about two boxes and a demon controlling molecules? (68). It's how to make the "Maxwell Demon" work, a device that is supposed to be able to violate thermodynamics without any expenditure of energy. Now this sounds completely absurd in nature, but isn't the overall scope of Pynchon's novel, "The Crying of Lot 49?" In the depths of John Nefastis's apartment, Oedipa is trying to determine whether or not she's a "Sensitive," trying to find a defining meaning by turning on this machine. The reader who writes with the pen in hand goes about reading this book in the very same way, combing line after line that could be suitable for anaylsis. He, much like Miss Mass, is trying to tie up loose ends in Pynchon's novel of randomly named characters and an unsual over-the-top plot arc. The only thing that seperates the reader from Oedipa is that he can see that the Maxwell Demon for what it really is as an intense mathematical formula, instead of a mythical object that operates on a "retinal twitch, a misfired nerve cell" (86).
ReplyDeleteThe Maxwell Demon theory is not a toy and should be performed only by a professional driver on a closed course. This link http://universe-review.ca/R01-02-z1-information.htm shows you why.
The machine in the novel I believe to be connected to the novel because they both have two parts. One being the literal and one being the metaphorical. Both the novel and the machine do not make sense in a literal way and don't have a meaning that is understood on the surface..or maybe at all. The machine IS a literal thing in the novel just loike the book we read is also a literal thing. Then there is the metephorical sense where as they both stand for something that isn't what you see unless you look for it. Oedipa with the machine, much like the reader of the novel struggles with comprehension and grows frustrated when trying to make sense of it. Like we've talked about in class many times the names and scenarios in the book seem to be symbols for some greater meaning. When the reader doesn't find a meaning this is frustrating just like Oedipa tries to become a sensitive to the machine but cannot. Some readers may think that if they read this novel and don't understand right away that they are maybe not as smart as others or that they are not "sensitive" to the language that Pynchon provides.
ReplyDeleteJodie
As Oedipa stares at the picture on the machine, she tries to communicate with the demon inside. At one point she thinks one of the pistons may have moved but it could have just been a spasm in her eye. Though she truly wishes to be able to communicate with the demon she admits that sensitives, those who can do it, probably only share in Nefastis’s delusion.
ReplyDeleteThis scene can be a metaphor for the reading of the novel because it is written in a way that makes it seem like something is there. The reader is given interesting names, conspiracies, connections, and the elation of trying to solve a mystery. So, as the reader, one can be caught up in the novel, staring at all the information and trying to make sense of it. The reader wishes to understand and then solve the mystery just as Oedipa wishes to be able to receive the deluge of molecule information and make a piston move.
Eventually, like Oedpia, the reader will realize there is nothing. Possibly out of bitterness, the reader may say those who do see anything are merely delusional. The character, Dribblet, is both meant to tell the reader that there is nothing but also to coax the reader into immersing himself into the delusion as Oedipa does.
Why would the reader, knowing full well that there may be nothing to discover, still wish to find something? As Oedipa wanted to be a ‘sensitive’ the reader may want to be able to be intelligent or cunning enough to find the meaning if there actually is one. It becomes a matter of pride or being good enough rather than merely curiosity. If there are others who can see the thread, what if they are right? Not being able to see it would mean being inferior. Oedipa herelf has moments of hating being lost or out of the know and strives to integrate herself, to understand and be on everybody else’s level.