| June 1, 1999 | Did Pynchon Prophesize Cyberspace? |
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The other day, I read an academic paper that presents the idea that Thomas Pynchon prophesized cyberspace and The Web with "Gravity's Rainbow." Of course, this is an idea that I, of all people, enjoy latching on to. In my re-reading of the book, I happened upon a passage (which the author of the paper points to) that, to me, really supports his hypothesis. It is a dialogue between Tyrone Slothrop and his father that occurs toward the end of the book when Slothrop's consciousness has pretty much dissolved. The fragment begins with the father saying: "Son, been wondering about this, ah, 'screwing in' you kids are doing. This matter of the, shooting electricity into head - ha-ha?" The son replies: "Waves, Pop. Not just raw electricity. That's fer drips!" They talk about "keying waves" and comparing it to dope and "vacations" away from "Realityland." Then the father says: "Listen Tyrone, you just don't know how dangerous this stuff is. Suppose someday you just plug in and go away and never come back? Eh?" This sounds exactly like any paranoid technophobe's argument in the 1990s about limiting kids' use of computers, video games, and the Internet. The best part is Tyrone's final response in this fragment: "Ho, ho! Don't I wish! What do you think every electrofreak dreams about? ... Maybe there is a Machine to take us away, take us completely, suck us out through the electrodes out of the skull 'n' into the Machine and live there forever with all the other souls it's got stored there... Dope never gave you immortality. You hadda come back, every time, into a dying hunk of smelly meat! But we can live forever, in a clean, honest purified Electroworld -" Perhaps plugging into "electrofreak dreams" and is what I'm looking for in my projecting of pieces of myself into cyber/hyperspace via the Web. Labels: book, internet, web, writing posted by Jess Barron @ 8:01 PM 
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