I'm answering a little late but I have been enjoying reading along with these for my read-through and I guess this is as good a time as any to ask: are 'They' real? Do 'They' actually exist or is it a deliberately nebulous construct the characters of the novel can blame all of the world's ills on without needing to take a more nuanced look at the actual society that leads to all of their problems? Problems which may be at least to some extent the characters' own personal issues rather than conspiracies? I recall last the post on 16.1 with Jessica and Roger. Perhaps Roger and Jessica's falling away from each other is not the result of some grand dehumanising capitalist force, and is just the much more simple fact that sexual compatibility and yes, even passionate love, are not sufficient for a long term healthy relationship where you also need the friendship and simple trust that Jessica seems to have with Beaver.
The rhetorical framing of those questions probably indicates where I stand, but I'm not 100% confident I'm necessarily right in that assumption. The fact that the book literally always used capital T 'They' which feels like a caricature of paranoid conspiracy theory types sort of made me feel that Pynchon was hinting at that. I ask this here because the way your analyses really confront that feeling in the book of oppressive systems so vast as to be insurmountable yet so ingrained as to be barely perceptible just ticked me off to these considerations.
With how much the Counterforce fail at the end of the book, is Pynchon critiquing the paranoid mentality that reduces the hyper-complex and increasingly post-human systems of our world to some malicious human deliberation rather than admitting it's way more complicated than that? I'm pretty much spitballing here lol.
I do believe that They are real but not in the sense of any specific "they." It's really just the uber-Elite class and the agencies that help maintain these individuals' wealth and power by whatever means necessary.
And I don't think that They have specifically set up a conspiracy or plot to tear apart Roger and Jessica, nor have they done so to people in general (though it is possible), but They have instead set up conditions where economic security trumps love in terms of relationships, which is why I think she goes back to Beaver. It could be the friendship and trust, though I think she could find that with Roger if things were allowed to go on.
And with how much the Counterforce fails, well, that is a section I really need to write about to fully come to a conclusion... It's the hardest section to analyze and while I get it, I really don't "get" it. Yet I hope to get there by the time I start my write-up. To put is succinctly, my initial thought goes to that it fails for a similar reason that Roger and Jessica fail. Because certain people are not willing to look past the constraints that They have put upon them. The Counterforce tries that fight the system within the system because they cannot see outside of it. This is also me spitballing, so stick with these that way you can get my true thoughts. Though that will be some ways away.
I'm answering a little late but I have been enjoying reading along with these for my read-through and I guess this is as good a time as any to ask: are 'They' real? Do 'They' actually exist or is it a deliberately nebulous construct the characters of the novel can blame all of the world's ills on without needing to take a more nuanced look at the actual society that leads to all of their problems? Problems which may be at least to some extent the characters' own personal issues rather than conspiracies? I recall last the post on 16.1 with Jessica and Roger. Perhaps Roger and Jessica's falling away from each other is not the result of some grand dehumanising capitalist force, and is just the much more simple fact that sexual compatibility and yes, even passionate love, are not sufficient for a long term healthy relationship where you also need the friendship and simple trust that Jessica seems to have with Beaver.
The rhetorical framing of those questions probably indicates where I stand, but I'm not 100% confident I'm necessarily right in that assumption. The fact that the book literally always used capital T 'They' which feels like a caricature of paranoid conspiracy theory types sort of made me feel that Pynchon was hinting at that. I ask this here because the way your analyses really confront that feeling in the book of oppressive systems so vast as to be insurmountable yet so ingrained as to be barely perceptible just ticked me off to these considerations.
With how much the Counterforce fail at the end of the book, is Pynchon critiquing the paranoid mentality that reduces the hyper-complex and increasingly post-human systems of our world to some malicious human deliberation rather than admitting it's way more complicated than that? I'm pretty much spitballing here lol.
I do believe that They are real but not in the sense of any specific "they." It's really just the uber-Elite class and the agencies that help maintain these individuals' wealth and power by whatever means necessary.
And I don't think that They have specifically set up a conspiracy or plot to tear apart Roger and Jessica, nor have they done so to people in general (though it is possible), but They have instead set up conditions where economic security trumps love in terms of relationships, which is why I think she goes back to Beaver. It could be the friendship and trust, though I think she could find that with Roger if things were allowed to go on.
And with how much the Counterforce fails, well, that is a section I really need to write about to fully come to a conclusion... It's the hardest section to analyze and while I get it, I really don't "get" it. Yet I hope to get there by the time I start my write-up. To put is succinctly, my initial thought goes to that it fails for a similar reason that Roger and Jessica fail. Because certain people are not willing to look past the constraints that They have put upon them. The Counterforce tries that fight the system within the system because they cannot see outside of it. This is also me spitballing, so stick with these that way you can get my true thoughts. Though that will be some ways away.