So what was Imipolex G exactly?

So what was Imipolex G exactly?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    as a symbol or in the book? what do you mean by this question?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      both

      is it black is it clear? etc etc

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        as a symbol, i read it as the culmination of a scientific/rationalistic mimic of nature, complimenting the v2 rocket's scientific/rationalistic domination of nature. in terms of the book, it's a plastic developed by ig farben used for insulation in the rocket, clear/white (i'm leaning towards white as that makes more sense in reference to the coloring in the book). it's left intentionally unclear tho

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          it's clear when gottfried wears it, i assumed it was black when greta wears it but idk

          and there's a purposeful parallel at the end where zhlubb imagines a plastic bag wrapping itself around his face killing him

          but why is it hooked up to gottfried at the end? does the rocket time travel?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            yeah the zhlubb scene at the end is nixon (and therefore america)'s death-wish, completely plastic and artificial. it relates to imipolex g, sure, but also to the plastic motif as a whole.

            and great question about the time-travel. the way i see it, there are two options for the reader: either the rocket hitting orpheus theatre is the one with gottfried launched by wiessman, therefore time-travelling, or it's a nuclear weapon. there's some interesting essays exploring the implications of either possibility, but i haven't got them on hand.
            gottfried operates as a multitude of symbols: the sacrificial lamb, the submissive fate of humanity under nazi germany (and any similar culture, which pynchon sees the us in the 60s as), etc. there's a plethora of options that coexist and intermingle it's hard to summarize in a IQfy post lol
            gravity's rainbow is largely "about" false transcendence, especially through technology, so make of that what you will

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            why do you think zhlubb is nixon? i know some secondary lit speculates this but they're so stupid generally i take nothing they say at face value

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            isn't his name in the text richard m zhlubb? idk, i think it fits well with the narrative and his dialogue sounds like a parody of how nixon speaks. i could be wrong, but i think it makes sense

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            yes and they do call him Dick but nowhere else does pynchkin push garbage 'parody' like this i mean the worst i guess would be sir stephen dodson-truck... how do you go from that to Dick Zhlubb, president whomst makes hippies angry?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            eh i could be wrong, for sure. but pynchon is certainly allied w said hippies, even if sees the futility in their fight, and was writing under nixon's presidency and the vietnam war and all that. he's not a right-wing, or fascist, or whatever writer. unless you have a very interesting reading of his work, in which case i would like to hear it lol

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            how do you know which "side" he's on? a whole book about the sides being fake and you think he's on a side? what if he wrote a whole series of books about the sides being all a show?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            one rocket to bring us to the moon, one for mass death. can't have one without the other

            and right, an arc is half a circle, sort of. but in terms of the opposites he sets up throughout the book, black v white, earth v sky, etc, arc and circle are a pair. this is not to imply he doesn't subvert these dichotomies, hell, that's what part 3 is all about, but the point is he initially sets up arcs and circles/ellipse as representing distinct and opposing things, even if these representations are not actually wholly distinct in the end...

            [...]
            that's my point lol he's not devoted to an ideology, should've mentioned he's not exactly left-wing either, my bad. he's interested in the counterculture elements of the 60s, like the hippie movement, and he's certainly against the vietnam war, but he's not a hippie, or communist, or anything else (except he's kind of a luddite according to himself, but we can't ever take him at his own word). i mean, look at his view of lsd in the crying of lot 49, he's not in line with the hippie movement at all. what i meant by "ally" was in terms of not exactly liking nixon and all he stood for (which, for all i know, is completely wrong and he loves nixon).

            sorry for the long effortpost, i haven't been on IQfy in years and i decided to check it out today cuz i'm bored as frick. always loved pynchon threads

            Pynchy fricking hates Nixon lol. Did everybody skip Vineland?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The epigram for the last section is
            '"What?" - Richard M Nixon'
            Lmao

            Plus pynchon just loves dumb jokes about presidents. On like page 3 of mason & dixon, there's a bill clinton weed joke

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >cheque's in the mayo

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            So who’s parodying von Braun? Also, it’s epigraph not epigram.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            holy shit u actually don’t understand anything abt the book, why did i waste my time posting in this thread

            if u can’t taste the irony dripping from that epigraph, ur delusional. weissman is clearly an amalgam of various figures including von braun

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            So weismann is von braun in the same way zhlubb is nixon because they are both in epigraphs?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            this is a troll. how did i fall for this

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Do you have an answer or no? I’m starting to feel like you don’t know why you believe the things you do but you have an interesting argument so I hope you can back it up.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            ok, i'll respond in good faith. weissman (literally: white man) represents something like the apotheosis of the decrepit european colonial subject, completely slave to rationality/scientific analysis. as pynchon sees it, this trend culminated in nazi germany, and the spirit lives on in postwar usa, as a "kingdom of death." von braun is a perfect example of this, as he was brought over via operation paperclip to work on the rocket that brought us to the moon.

            the holocaust and the dropping of atomic bombs on japan loom large in the book, but are not portrayed extensively. it's important to remember the adorno line "poetry is barbaric after auschwitz." this does not mean the basic "ohhhh man's inhumanity to man..." but rather, meaning is impossible after auschwitz, as whatever is being signified will inevitably refer to such an act of cruelty as to be unfathomable. everything in gravity's rainbow is, eventually, about the v2 rocket, a machine of death (and going to the moon or whatever). can you imagine killing one person? six? what about six million? well, once you kill six million, what's ten? a hundred?

            the reason i bring this up is to illustrate the "kingdom of death" aspect of america, and pynchon's view of the betrayal at the core of the nation. think hawthorne, think melville. america was supposed to be an escape from european rationality, that linear view of history that leads to death. instead, what it became was a celebration of these things, stripped of the pageantry and showmanship of european imperialism. we don't get castles, we get sterile gray skyscrapers. this is leaving out a lot of context and history, but i'm doing my best to be brief lol.

            werner von braun is the exemplar of this old, european death transforming into american death. weissman is not literally von braun, but he's a great example of what weissman signifies. nixon, on the other hand, is pure american death, riding in the "managerial volkswagen" (pretty obvious what that symbol is...) and wishing for a completely plastic death. i hope this is not too convoluted, these were just my thoughts after my third read (currently on my fourth).

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            forgot to mention the obvious: native american genocide dwarfs the holocaust, emphasizing america's violence and worship of death that has defined it since day one. it may now be abstracted, "on paper," technocratic, after ww2, but it's still there, and yet will be.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            wasn't that mostly smallpox?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            where did the smallpox come from dawg
            besides, subtract the deaths from disease and the death count is still in the millions

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            god

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            This is good. Honestly, one of the better analyses I’ve read on here about the book. I think you really get at what pynchon is trying to say.

            It’s a bit muddled, though I know this is IQfy. Give it a stronger and clearer through-line, tighten it up, and reference the book more to support your arguments.

            But seriously, very good.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            thx! honestly. i'm working on my undergrad rn and writing my dissertation on pynchon & melville, so i appreciate the encouragement.

            Wow so you've only read random secondary literature? Go. Read. The. Book. homosexual.

            And stop wasting people's time with these counterfeit opinions free of facts or even references to the text you're pretending to understand. Anyone sees through this horseshit =)

            ur free to believe whatever u want but just know ur wrong and a pseud 🙂 maybe read smth a little more ur speed, infinite jest perhaps?
            also saying counterfeit this much is giving me second-hand embarrassment, learn a new word

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            huh?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Thank Christ I'm not the only person here who's read GR.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Hahaha IQfy really doesn't read. Pseud effort posts rule.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            ??

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            there is only one summer pseud and he posts all of these types of posts (it's really just one post (this one))

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >gravity's rainbow is largely "about" false transcendence
            why do you say that

            >he rocket hitting orpheus theatre
            i guess the orpheus theater is orpheus' theater not the orpheus theater

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            if you reread the novel, look for references to transcendence, and how often said transcendence fails. think about the rocket itself- at brennschluss, after it pierces into outer space, its ascent is "betrayed" to gravity, to nature. the movement of the rocket, literally gravity's rainbow, is a false transcendence. this can be seen also in all the arc vs circle images, with arcs generally associated with death and circles with life. the mandala in the village vs the underground rocket facility w slave labor

            i think ur right, it's the orpheus theater. don't have the book w me to check.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >look for references to transcendence
            leni pokler complains about how it's false but as we know and pynchon knew she is wrong... making her the loser foil

            weissman transcends, slothrop transcends, the rocket transcends and brings us to the moon

            >in all the arc vs circle images
            it's not vs... pinecone points out that the arc continues down through the earth making it in fact a circle or ellipse

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            one rocket to bring us to the moon, one for mass death. can't have one without the other

            and right, an arc is half a circle, sort of. but in terms of the opposites he sets up throughout the book, black v white, earth v sky, etc, arc and circle are a pair. this is not to imply he doesn't subvert these dichotomies, hell, that's what part 3 is all about, but the point is he initially sets up arcs and circles/ellipse as representing distinct and opposing things, even if these representations are not actually wholly distinct in the end...

            how do you know which "side" he's on? a whole book about the sides being fake and you think he's on a side? what if he wrote a whole series of books about the sides being all a show?

            that's my point lol he's not devoted to an ideology, should've mentioned he's not exactly left-wing either, my bad. he's interested in the counterculture elements of the 60s, like the hippie movement, and he's certainly against the vietnam war, but he's not a hippie, or communist, or anything else (except he's kind of a luddite according to himself, but we can't ever take him at his own word). i mean, look at his view of lsd in the crying of lot 49, he's not in line with the hippie movement at all. what i meant by "ally" was in terms of not exactly liking nixon and all he stood for (which, for all i know, is completely wrong and he loves nixon).

            sorry for the long effortpost, i haven't been on IQfy in years and i decided to check it out today cuz i'm bored as frick. always loved pynchon threads

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            lol bruh c'mon

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            ??
            is this ur first pynchon book or have u read his other early shit

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You're not a deep reader are you?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            well frick you too! i was trying to be nice and explain the basics of this book, cuz u clearly barely read it. i mean, pynchon doesn't parody shit? really? gravity's rainbow alone has dozens of straight-up parody songs, not to mention structural, mythical, and literary parodies all throughout. the book is partly a parody (and genuine example) of the genre of american-goes-to-europe-and-learns-real-shit like henry james' the ambassadors (and other james novels). god nu-IQfy is so entitled

            [...]
            Pynchy fricking hates Nixon lol. Did everybody skip Vineland?

            yeah exactly, idk how someone can deny pynchon's affinity w the 60s counterculture (even tho he sees the futility). vineland is underrated af, as good as against the day imo, although i prefer inherent vice to both. that's my hot take on pynchon's oeuvre.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The dude you're responding to probably read a few toon many cryptocuttlefish posts on twitter. I noticed a general influx of twitter/tumblr types who think shoving foreign objects up their buttholes is an act of resistance and praxis against the modern consumption centered consoomer capital that these people love to simultaneously rail against and reinforce. In short, don't mind them. They're either in debt from getting a shitty sociology degree from multidirectional flyover state university OR they work in food service and are covered in shitty tattoos living 7 people to a two bedroom apartment while spending all their income on ketamine.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            huh

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            cryptocuttlefish is a schizo but tbh they have interesting ideas abt GR occasionally. and hey, nothing wrong with putting foreign objects up ur butthole. as long as u don't hurt urself. idk im gay

            also i think OP just hasn't read pynchon in any rigorous way at all, and i got the impression they were a rightoid, not a cryptocuttlefish-esque leftoid. who knows tho, either way they're lazy for asking strangers online to explain a book

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            There's something to be said about schizo posting, usually there's something to it. But I personally dislike everything being hijacked by people who come in under the guise of being oppressed and left out only to use said cover to attack others who don't subscribe to to their worldview and more or less coerce people into thinking, talking, and acting the same way. It comes down to my general problem with tyrannical tendencies, which is exactly what these types of anal enthusiasts have. I get it not all homos, but it really does put the Gorky quote in perspective.

            Also after finding out more about Pynchon and realizing he comes from the same East Coast old money networks as the like of James Jesus Angleton and the Dulles and the rest it made me realize that one really shouldn't read him without some knowledge of how communications and intel networks have functioned historically.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            oh yeah that part of his biography is important (as with his time at boeing). especially his ancestor that was a heretical puritan. reading pynchon in the same vein as melville/hawthorne, about the promise of america and the new world vs the reality of it, puts a lot of his views in perspective

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >cuz u clearly barely read it
            not a single example offered
            >parodies of songs
            Go on, what songs are being parodied? Oh you don't know... so they're not parodies? Etc for the other 3 parody targets you mentioned. You simply do not know and do not have an answer because you can't or won't think. Cheap, counterfeit opinions that collapse under investigation.

            If depiction in a novel = affinity then he's also a nazi pedophile anarchist commie COP s&m lawyer cia agent who both gives and receives footjobs you get the point you don't get the point lol

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            good one. off the top of my head, salt of the earth by the rolling stones is parodied late in the book. "say a prayer for the common informer." dozens of ww2 songs are parodied that i don't know by name, but then, you claim there aren't parodies at all, which is insane.

            >structural
            gave an example already w the genre
            >mythical
            orpheus' harp & descent to underworld - tyrone's harmonica and descent into toilet
            >literary
            t.s. eliot's later poetry (four quartets type shit) is parodied pretty early on in the pavlovian poems by pointsman

            there's a lot more but i don't have to justify anything to you. read the book again, then come back.

            and no, it's not the depiction that makes me think he has an affinity with the counterculture. again, read the fricking book, or any of his others about the counterculture (tcol49, vineland, inherent vice)

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Wow so you've only read random secondary literature? Go. Read. The. Book. homosexual.

            And stop wasting people's time with these counterfeit opinions free of facts or even references to the text you're pretending to understand. Anyone sees through this horseshit =)

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    also, asking what something is "exactly" in pynchon is kinda missing the point

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Was Mrs. Quoad a Witch?

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

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