the scanty plot: orwell, pynchon and the poetics of paranoia
TRANSCRIPT
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The "Scanty Plot": Orwell, Pynchon, and the Poetics of ParanoiaAuthor(s): Aaron S. RosenfeldSource: Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Winter, 2004), pp. 337-367Published by: Hofstra UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4149267Accessed: 05-01-2016 08:35 UTC
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The
"Scanty
Plot":
Orwell,
Pynchon,
and the
Poetics
of
Paranoia
AaronS.
Rosenfeld
In truth the
prison,
nto which
we
doom
Ourselves,
no
prison
is;
and hence for
me,
In
sundry
moods,
'twas
pastime
to
be bound
Within
the
Sonnet's
cantyplot
of
ground.
-Wordsworth
(199)
Not
leastamong the prescientaspectsof GeorgeOrwell's 1984 is its
articulation f a
paranoia
hat s at once dismaland
thrilling.
f
today
para-
noia'sdistinctive
ensibility-its
blend
of
grandiosity
and
abjection-has
become a
commonplace
of the modern
novel,
with writers rom
Pynchon
to
DeLillo to Amis
riffing
on the
suspicion
that the world
might
be
a
setup,
Orwell's
version
lays
the
groundwork
or their sense of
paranoia's
possibilities.
n this
essay,
treatthe
paranoia
of
1984 as more than
ust
a
topical
thematics
hat reacts o the
political
conditionsof Orwell's
ime;
I
arguethat the novelalsoresponds o the condition of the literature f his
time.
By looking
at 1984 and
then,
briefly,
Thomas
Pynchon's
The
Crying
of
Lot
49
as
counterpoint,
I
pose
Orwell's
paranoidpoetics
as
an
effort
to
mediate between
competing
literary
discourses
and their attendant
models of
subjectivity.
That Orwell
explicitly
intended 1984
to address
opical political
realities
has
been
well documented.'
In a
letter
to FrancisA. Henson
in
June
1949,
commenting
on the
germ
of
the
novel,
he
wrote:
"totalitarian
ideashave takenrootin the minds of intellectuals verywhere, ndI have
tried to draw
hese ideas out to their
logical
consequences"
Howe
287).
Following
along
these
lines,
John
Atkins,
n an
early response
to
1984,
Twentieth-Century
iterature
0.4
Winter 2004 337
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Aaron S.
Rosenfeld
claimedhat
heworldof 1984 s"not
magination
t allbuta
painstaking
pursuit
f
existing
endencieso what
appear
ogical
conclusions"
252).
Similarly,
rving
Howe,
a
chimpion
of the
work,
wrote hat he"last
hing
Orwellcaredabout,he last hinghe shouldhavecaredaboutwhen he
wrote 1984
s literature"
322).2
uchstatementssthese
ay
the
ground-
workfor
reading
1984
in
termsof its
clear-sightedness,
ts evocation f
"history
s
nightmare"
the
title
of Howe's
article),
ather han
n
terms
of
the work's
iterary ualities.
But it is not
only
Orwell's
isceral evulsion t totalitarian
olitics
that
shapes
his critical
esponse:
t is also 1984's
rejection
f novelistic
conventions. or
example,
while Howe calls1984 a "remarkable"ook
(321),he also uggestshat t doesnot meettherequirementsf the novel
as
genre:
It is
not,
I
suppose,
eally
novel,
or at least t doesnot
satisfy
those
expectations
e havecome to have
with
regard
o the
novel-expectations
hatare
mainly
he
heritage
f nineteenth
century
omanticism
ith its stress
pon
ndividualonscious-
ness,
psychological
nalysis
nd
the
study
of
intimate elations.
(321)
Howe continues:Orwell as
magined
world
n
whichthe
self,
what-
eversubterraneanxistence t
mightmanage
o eke
out,
is no
longer
a
significant
alue,
ot evena value o be violated"
322).
Herehe
gestures
toward
possibility
or
reading
1984
within,
rather
hanoutside
of,
the
tradition: rwell's
violation"f the
notion
of
self s not
simply
viola-
tion of an a
priori
assumption
bout he nature f the
human;
t is the
violationof the self
as
literary
ategory,
s a
quantity
erived
hrough
literaturendwithinthe dynamic rocess f narrativeevelopment.n
this
sense,
f
1984 is
only
dubiously
iteraturenstead f
politics,
Orwell
at the
very
eastcares
nough
o
speak
o literaturend
the noveltradi-
tion.What hen is the
relationship
etween1984 and
iterature,nd,
by
extension,
ts
literary eriod?
We
mightbeginby considering
he climaxof the novel.The climax
appears
o be
the scene n
Room
101,
whereWinston
s introduced
o
his
greatest
ear,
he rats. Do it to
Julia "
e cries
190),
proving
hat ove
is no match ortorture,nd hat heperfectedotalitariantate scapable
of
erasing
he last
vestige
of
humanity.
ut we
might
offer
a
different
climactic scene.
Immediately
before his
capture,
Winston stands in front
338
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Orwell,
ynchon,
nd
hePoetics
f
Paranoia
of a
picture
on the wallof
his
hideaway.
We
arethe
dead,"
e
says.
He
is
shockedwhen
"You
are
the
dead"
s
repeated
ack
o
him,
the voice
coming
rombehind he
picture
147).The
cene
continues:
"Now
they
can
see
us,"
aid
ulia.
"Now we cansee
you,"
aid he
voice....
"Thehouse
s
surrounded,"
aidWinston.
"Thehouse s
surrounded,"
aid
he voice.
(148)
Winston tillhas
yet
to
be
turned
nside ut
and
reconstituted
s
an
empty
shell,
a
good
citizenof Oceania. ut
while
the annihilationf Winston
the character
as
yet
to
come,
here we see the calculated nnihilation
of Orwell's ovel.A text thatonceincludedmultiple oicescontending
with one another
o
define hemselvesndthe fictivereal
collapses
nto
monologicity.The
estof the novelwill be taken
up
withan
nterrogation
in
whichone
party
lready
nows
he
answers,
nd n
which he ultimate
confession
s
a fait
accompli.
s
Howe
suggests,
t
is the end of
character
as
a
category
n
possession
f
agency,nteriority,
ssence--in
hort,
n
pos-
session f itself.ButWinston'snd is not the
starting
oint
of the
novel,
it is the conclusion.
f
Winston
begins
as
a
familiar haracter-thehero
of a questromance-he endsasquiteanother:nenvironmentalixture.
Winston'swallscannot tand
n
the face of
O'Brien's ssault n
behalf
of
Big
Brother nd he
Party.
We hall
queeze
ou
empty,
nd henwe
shall
ill
you
with
ourselves,"
'Brien
says
170).
With this"violation"
Orwell's ovel
stages
an
anxious,
eflexive
ncounternot
just
with
the
politics
of the
day
butalsowith
specificallyiterary
modelsof
represent-
ing
the
subject.
As
the
voice
in
the
picture
mirrors
ack
o Winstonhis
own
words,
it is botha momentof supremeomanticranscendencendof intense
paranoia,
he actionwithinthe fictivereal
reproducing logic
of com-
plete adequation
etween nsideand outsideworlds. t
is
the
pathetic
fallacy
made
iteral-Winston's
houghts
eally
do
appear
n
the
world,
are
ndistinguishable
rom
t.The
hallmarks
f
paranoia-its
nsistence
n
reading
nto a
random,
ndifferent orlda
motivated,
oherent
arrative;
its
claimof
grandiosity
or the
object
of
aggression;
ts
reduction
f the
worldto
a
stable
binary
n
which all
signs
aketheir
meaning
hrough
theirrelationo theparanoid-arequiteexplicitly endered s the basis
of the novel's
"plot."
aranoia
ecomes,
n
effect,
he
poetic
principle
governing
984.3
339
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Orwell,
ynchon,
nd he
Poetics f
Paranoia
Specifically,
rwell
uses
paranoia
o
bridge
ompeting
omantic
nd
modernist
models f the
subject.
He
exaggerates
oth
romanticism's
ense
of
the
expansive
ubject
nd
modernism's
enseof
the
subject
uspended
withina
complex
web of
signs.8
he
paranoia
f thenovel s a
symptom
of the
contact
one
wherethe
romantic
ubject
who
would
have
signs
disappear
nto
immanence o
reveal
he
"true
subject"
s
strandedn
a
modernistworld
made
up
of
scattered
extual
ragments,
here im-
manencewill
come
not in
the
disappearance
f
signs
but in
theirfull
"capture"
f the
subject.
Orwell
pins
the
displaced
omantic
ubject
n
text,
effecting
oth
repair
nd
stabilization.9
hat
s
beyond
extuality
s
reduced
o an
erratum:
Youare
a flaw n
the
pattern,
Winston.You re
a stain hatmustbe
wiped
out"
169),
O'Brien
ays.
Wemake hebrain
perfect
eforewe
blow t
out."
Orwell's
aranoid
ortrayal
oth
ndulges
such an
aesthetic nd
evokes
horrorat
the loss
of
those
elements
hat
might
escape
he
net
of
legibility.
Peter
Knight,
n
his
discussion f
the
connectedness
f
seemingly
random
vents n
DeLillo's
Underworld,
akesa
suggestive
bservation
with
regard
o
paranoia's
apacity
or
connecting
vents.
He
notes
that
"taken
ndividually,
any
of
these
connections re
perhaps
o
more
han
the thematic onstructionf a well-composedworkof fiction"
829)
and
draws
ttention
o the
fact
that
novels
already
rivilege
a
kind of
"connectedness"
n
reading.
his
association ith
paranoia
s not
just
metaphorical.
n
fact,
he
cognitive
malfunction
hat
ies at
the
heartof
paranoia
s
located n
the
perception
f
connectedness,
n
this
most
basic
act
of"fiction."n
other
words,
aranoia
s
the act
of
reading
he
world
as f
it were
a
book.And
moreover,
s
f
it
werea
bad
book:
he
paranoid,
insisting
n an
excessive
orrespondence
etween
igns
and
hings,
efuses
theloosersignificationf themetaphororunambiguousertainty.10n
this
sense,
aranoid
ogic
is
instrumental
ather
han
metaphorical,
ath-
ematical
ather han
poetic.
The
paranoid
remise
stablishes
coherent
framework
or
organizing
he
multiplication
f
manifestations.t is a
kind
of
excessive
ormalization,
metastatic
rganization
f
materialhat
points
toward
single
hidden
onclusion,
he
threat
o
autonomy."
Just
as the
struggle
or
autonomy
becomesa
structuring
rinciple
of the
paranoid's
ental
organization,
he
paranoid
ext
both
thematizes
thethreat o autonomy ndenacts t at theformalevel.Threeelements
in
particular
tructure
his
threatwithin
the
"paranoid
tyle":
aranoia's
intensity
of
investment in
its
story;
paranoid
identification
(projective
341
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Aaron S. Rosenfeld
identification);
and
the
persistence
of the
paranoid premise.
With
regard
to
the
first,
at
the
simplest
level we notice
paranoia
when an
"objective"
view
of events is
overwhelmed
by
the
interpretive
gestures
of the
teller.
With
regard
to the
second,
paranoid
identification establishes
equiva-
lency
between
the
paranoid
and his
persecutor.
A
paranoid
structure
assays
reconstruction
of the
ego
on an
exaggerated,
delusional
scale,
the
paranoid
identifying
himself with
the more
grandiose
object
of both
his
terror and
his love.12With
regard
to the
third,
paranoid logic
relies on its
initial
premise
of
persecution
in order to establish
its claims. Once
such a
conclusion
is
presumed,
the
events take on
significance
in
relation
to each
other
in what
appears
to
be a causal
sequence
by
virtue of
their
capacity
to
prove
this
prior
conclusion. Taken
together
and
singly,
these
opera-
tions
are all
predicated
on
asserting
both
autonomy
and
authority
over
the text.
To be
paranoid
is to be the
last and best reader
of the
text,
the
one
for whom
the text is written.When
the
paranoid
narrative structure
is absorbed
into the
text,
characters
within the fictive
real are invited
to
recognize
the world
they
inhabit as constructed
within the
protocols
of
textuality.
Although,
as
Knight's
comment
suggests,
each of
the above
operations
has an
analogue
in familiar behaviors of reading-we attribute motive
to
authors;
we
identify
with
characters;
we
partake
of the
page-bound
intelligibility
of fictive worlds
(and
"lose" ourselves
in
them)-paranoia
is distinct
in
the
degree
of its investment
in this
role.What
distinguishes
paranoia
from
a reasonable
suspiciousness
is
ultimately
not whether
the
threat
is
true,
but the
kind of
gratification
the
paranoid
takes
in
the
threat.
Though
the
paranoid
is an active
reader,
he or she also
has an investment
in
being
the
passive
object
of
reading.
The
projective quality
of
paranoia
has a tendency to reverse the readerly gaze. Imagine the traveler who
stands on a
hill and
gazes
out at
the
utopian, legible
city-paranoia
re-
verses the vector
of
agency
so that
the
paranoid
stands
in the middle while
the world
gazes
back.13
Autonomy
is asserted
through
the
adoption
of two
complementary
grandiose
positions:
the
paranoid
occupies
a
privileged
relationship
to the
text of the world
both as the lone
reader of
signs
and
as the
object implicated
in
or
by
them.
Just
as
the
paranoid
shuttles back
and
forth between the
positions
of
the readerand the read,the paranoid narrativeshuttles between abjection
and
grandiosity
for its
protagonists.
This simultaneous
decentering
and
valorization of
subjectivity
within
the confines
of a
systematic
textuality
342
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Orwell,
Pynchon,
nd he Poetics f Paranoia
echoes
the modernist
project.Theapocalyptic
ense
that Frank
Kermode
identifies
as
part
of
the modern
sensibility
dovetailsn
paranoia
with what
he refers o
as the
"formal
desperation"
f the
Joyce/Proust/Kafka/Musil
brandof modernism
(10).
Modernism shifts the balanceof inflection
between the word
and
the world
in
favor of the
word,
substituting
he
dream
of a
formally
coherent ext for the
expectation
of coherentcharac-
ter,
and thus
opens
the door
to
the enforced
unities
of
paranoid eading.
As
modernism
morphs
into
postmodernism,
we see an even
more
explicit portrayal
f
form and an even
greater
emphasis
on the textual
nature
of
subjectivity.14 night argues
that
in
a world
where
"every-
thing
is
connected
but
nothing
adds
up"
(823),
more,
not less
paranoia
is
required.
Many
critics,
ncluding
the ones noted above,have
explored
how
contemporary
writers
ike
Pynchon,Kathy
Acker,
Martin
Amis,
and
Don DeLillo
exploit paranoia
as
a
pervasive
ultural heme within what
O'Donnell
calls the
"complicitous
relationbetween
postmodernity
and
paranoia"
vii).
O'Donnell
argues
hat texts
by
writers ike
Pynchon
and
Acker"chart he
peregrinations
f
fluid,
postmodern
dentities
operating
within
increasingly omplex
and
encroachingdisciplinary
matrices"
23).
In
other
words,
f
modernism
requiresparanoidreading
to make sense
of the world text,postmodernismposes paranoiano longeras a buttress
against ragmentation
ut
as
its
complement,
as a
defense
against
he en-
forced hierarchies f modernist
reading.15
Within
this
account
of
paranoia's
ise,
Orwell's ext
is
a
harbinger
f
things
to
come.
In what
follows
I will
tracesome of the formsand
figures
that
shape
the
"familiar
oncept
of
subjectivity"
hat Orwell inheritsand
show how
paranoiaregisters
moments
of
change
within it.
I
will
also
suggest
some of the
ways
in
which
postmodern
paranoia
s distinct rom
modernistand romanticversions.
While Orwell shared
or much
of
his careera historical
tage
with various
incarnations
f the modernist
movement,
his
relationship
o modernismas
an
aesthetic
s
contentious.
Most
striking
s his sense of the
group
of
writ-
ers
now
classed
under the rubric
of"modernism"-Joyce,
Eliot, Pound,
Lawrence, tc.-as havingneglecteda historical ense of purpose n their
writing.
In
"Inside
the
Whale"
he writes of them:"Our
eyes
are directed
to
Rome,
to
Byzantium,
to
Montparnasse,
to
Mexico,
to the
Etruscans,
343
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Orwell,
ynchon,
nd hePoetics
f
Paranoia
condemnedo
submit o the
"world-process"
s t
is,
to
"simply
ccept
t,
endure
t,
record
t"
(1:
526).
If
language
s
to
be
recovered,
t
will be via
individualruths hataddresshe collective
eality;
ut,
n
keeping
with
Orwell'siercedefense f theindividual,uch ruthsmust
necessarily
e
lonely
truths,
erived rom
ingular
erceptions,
f
they
are o
be valid.
Critics uchas KeithAlldritt
o
so
far
as
to find
the
symbolism,
l-
lusiveness,
ndhistorical oncernof 1984 consistent ith the modernist
project.
At
the same
ime,
Alldritt eadsOrwellas
a
failed
ymbolist,
e-
turning
o
"allegorical
able
and
utopia
.. forms hatweremoreresistant
to the
strong
nfluences
fJoyce,
Proust,
nd D. H. Lawrence"
4).
He
argues
hatthis
struggle
s
allegorized
n
1984,
the novela
"projection
anda criticism f the tendencies f the specificallyiterary rthodoxy
of
the
time,"
with O'Briena "caricaturef certain
ymbolist
ttitudes"
(158-59).16
Meanwhile,
f
Orwell s "interestedess
n
temperament
han
milieu"
21),
he is
also
inkedwith the naturalist
radition
f
Gissing
nd
Wells,
he sametradition hat
Virginia
Woolf
attacks
n her
modernist
manifesto Mr.Bennett ndMrs.
Brown.""17
f,
ike
Wells,
Orwell'snterest
lies
as
muchwith
setting
swith
character,
ike
Eliot
he alsoseesa world
constructed
y language.
Thisaestheticonundrumecomes source f 1984'sownversion f
passivity.
inston
s
caught
etween he
degenerateopular
iteraturehat
Orwell o
despises,
mbodied
n
the mechanical
opular
ulture
roduced
by
the
Party,
ndan aesthetic f
pure
anguage
hathasno connection o
the
world,
mbodied
n
the Inner
Party's
anguage
ames.The
ndividual
subject
or
Orwell s
already
angerously
ied
up
in
signifying
ystems
hat
threaten o overwhelm
gency. hrough
his
essays,
memoirs,
nd other
novelswe see Orwell
truggling
o
definea notion
of
the
subject
hates-
capesrom hevagariesf discourse.n hisfamous ssay Politics nd he
English
Language,"
rwellconceives
f debased
anguage
s thatwhich
is
imposed
rom"outside"atherhan
beinggenerated
rom"inside"he
subject's
wn
perceptions. choing
Daniel
Paul
Schreber,
ho writesof
"miracled
irds"
hat
repeat
'meaninglesshrases
hat
they
have earnt
by
heart' ndthat
havebeen
crammed
nto
them"'
qtd.
n
Freud,
Three
Case
Histories
11),
Orwell
writes:
[Ready-made
hrases]
ill
construct
your
sentences
or
you-even
think
your
thoughts
or
you,
to a
certain
extent-and at needtheywillperformheimportanterviceofpartially
concealing
our
meaning
venfrom
yourself"
Howe
258).
The
answer,
he
writes,
is "to let the
meaning
choose
the
word,
and not the
other
345
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Aaron
S. Rosenfeld
way
around"
(255).18
His commitment
here is to the
struggle
against
he
loss
of
authority
over
language.
s
authority
over
the realto
reside
n
the
individual's
bility
to
grasp
"facts,"
r
in the
language
tself?19
anguage
thathas
migrated
rom
speakers
o
"speakers"-the
oudspeakers
hatblare
out
propaganda
n
1984-cannot
guarantee
ndividual
presence.
How, then,
does Orwell's
paranoia
mediate
between
these
conflicting
aesthetic
models?While
Orwell's
nsistence
on
signs
that
can
point
the
way
to the
world
("two
plus
two makes
four")
is an
attitude
that resists
certain of
modernism's
presuppositions
bout
language,
his assertion
of
character
s a
category
hat is
open
to the
protocols
of
reading,
hat exists
as
if in
a
book,
associates
is
text also
with the
very
modernism
he
seems
to strainagainst. t is a deep strainof latentromanticism hat connects
these
positions.
By
imagining
a
subject
who is
in
possession
of-or
who
ought
to be
in
possession
of-an
"impregnable"
eart,
an essential
con-
nection
to a sublime
that
transcends
mere
language,
Orwell
reproduces
romanticism's
erms
of
subjectivity
within
the
protocols
of a modernist
world.
It is this embattled
romanticism
hat surfaces
n
Orwell's
ext
in
the form
of
paranoia.
I
want
to turn
now to several
haracteristic
xamples
hat
suggest
one
version of the romanticrelationship o textuality.Wordsworth'sNuns
fret not
at their
narrowconvent
room"
closes
with an
image
of
agreeable
incarceration
n
poetic
language:
In truth the
prison,
nto which
we doom
Ourselves,
no
prison
is;
and hence
for
me,
In
sundry
moods,'twas
pastime
to be
bound
Within
the
Sonnet's
cantyplot
of
ground.
Ironizing the "scantiness"of the sonnet form, Wordsworthsuggests
that,
far
from
being
a
prison,
t
is,
like
a convent
room,
a
relief from
the
crowded
outside
world.Wordsworth
s
finally
alone
with his text.
The
"we"
of the first
line of
the stanza
becomes
"me"
in
the second
line;
reading
and
writing
are,
inally,
olitary
acts.
The scantiness
of
the
"plot"
occurs
in
several
registers:
raphically,
n the sonnet's
plotting
out of
the
space
on the
page;
expressively,
n the
sense
that the
sonnet
limits itself
to a rendition
of
one
thought,
emotion,
or
feeling;
and
finally
socially,
in the reader's pting out of the world of thingsfor the world of signs.
Wordsworth
laims
the
privilege
of
entering
alone
into the
scantyplot;
the
paranoid
is condemned
to
it.
346
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Orwell,
Pynchon,
nd he Poetics f Paranoia
MaryShelley's
he
LastManoffers
differentersion
f
the romantic
relation etween
olitude nd
signs.
n
her
novel,
a
plaguewipes
out
all
of
humanity,
eaving
Verney,
he last
man,
n
an
ecstasy
f
singularity:
I
shallwitness
llthe
variety
f
appearance,
hat he
elements
an
assume-I
shall ead
air
augury
n
the rainbow-menace n
the
cloud-some lesson
or
record ear o
my
heart n
everything.
Thusaround he shores
f
deserted
arth,
while
the sun
s
high,
andthe moon waxesor
wanes,
ngels,
he
spirits
f
the
dead,
and he
ever-open ye
of the
Supreme,
ill
behold
he
tiny
bark
freighted
with
Verney-the
LAST
MAN.
(342)
Verneyhasbecomethe one person n the worldwho can read the
signs-literally
he
last
man.
If
Wordsworthooks aroundhis cell and
seesthe
writing
on
the
wall,Verney
eesthe
writing
on the world.But
bothWordsworth
nd
Shelley
provide
subject
who stands loneat
the
centerof
a
network
f
signs,
n
the
privileged osition
of
solitary
eader.
Wordsworth's
nd
Shelley's
ormulations
uggest
he romanticismnher-
ent in
paranoia
and
vice
versa).
o be
alonewith
a
text s the essence f
the
paranoid
tructure f
reading,
hich
presumes special
elationship
betweenreader ndsigns. nOrwell, omanticolitude s exchangedor
paranoid
ingularity,
reserving
he sense hat he
text
can
befor
a chosen
reader.
This
romantic
conception
survives nto the next
century.
But what
happens
when the
signs
no
longer point
to the
self?
Perchedon the
verge
of
modernity,
we see Thomas
Hardyadopting
his
problematic
s theme.
In
"Hap"
Hardy
expresses
nxiety
about the condition of
reference,
ink-
ing
it to
the desireto
find
intentionality
n
the
signs:
If
but some
vengeful
god
would call to me
From
up
the
sky
and
laugh:
"Thou
suffering
hing,
Know that
thy
sorrow s
my ecstasy,
That
thy
love's oss is
my
hate's
profiting "
Then
would
I
bear
t,
clench
myself,
and
die,
Steeled
by
the sense of
ire
unmerited;
Half-eased
n
that a
powerfuller
han
I
Had
willed and meted
me
the tears
I
shed.
347
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Aaron S. Rosenfeld
But not so. How
arrives it
joy
lies
slain
And
why
unblooms
the best
hope
ever sown?
-Crass
Casualty
obstructs the sun and rain
and
dicing
Time for
gladness
casts a moan
...
These
purblind
Doomsters
had as
readily
strown
Blisses
about
my pilgrimage
as
pain.
(Norton 44)
If
there
were
only
intention,
Hardy
seems to
say, oy
would blossom
in
the
knowing
that
one has
been
singled
out,
however
unjustly,
for a bad
ending.
Indeed,
Hardy
returns
again
and
again
to a notion of fate's lack
of
personal
interest as
the
wellspring
of
tragedy.
The
gods
are not
venge-
ful, but randomly, coldly indifferent-and thus, for Hardy'snarrator,sor-
row becomes unbearable.
Hardy
is not
paranoid
in
"Hap";
paranoia
is a
subjunctive promise
of
relief,
an
outlook that
might
somehow
redeem
suffering
by making
it
his
own. Orwell
recapitulates
this
anxiety
about
intention and the
place
of the
subject
in
1984. Winston asks
Julia
if
she
remembers
"that thrush that
sang
to
us,
that first
day,
at the
edge
of the
wood?"
"He wasn't singing to us,"saidJulia."He was singing to
please
himself."
(147)
Like
Hardy's arkling
hrush,
he bird
sings
of
something
Winston
and
Julia
annot
ee,
hat
s
indifferent
o theirexistence.20
The
crisis
Hardy
points
to is not
strictly
a historical one. It also in-
vokes
the exhaustion of a romantic
literary
rhetoric
in
the face of its own
belatedness.
Perry
Meisel
argues
that the modernist novel
in
turn
is
a
form
of
materialized
memory,
an effort
to
retroactively produce
a
ground
that
will authorize the
subject.
This
"paradox
of belatedness"
(5)
infuses
both
modernism and romanticism.
According
to
Meisel,
both romanticism and
modernismenact
a
"retroactive
roduction
of
lost
primacy
by
means
of
evidence
belatedly
gathered
o
signify
the
presence
of
its
absence"
229).
This
formulation
drawsattention to the
important
connection between
these two
modes,
though
there is also a substantive ifference
n
exactly
how
the
"presence
of absence" s
signified.
In the romantic
text,
it
ap-
pears hrough
shift
n
perception;
n
modernism
hrough
shift
n
the
signifying
tatus f the text
itself,
which
relocateshe sublime ot in the
world
but in the
textual
object.
348
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Orwell,
Pynchon,
nd he Poetics f Paranoia
1984
signals
a new
phase
in
the
battle
for romantic
subjectivity.
Orwell
provides
a
vision
of the romantic
character-Verney,
the last
man-fallen
into a modernist
landscape
where individual
presence
is
disallowed.But instead of
simply lamenting
the demise of the
subject,
Orwell
uses
paranoia
o return the
subject
to the center of the
signify-
ing
system.
Unable to
ignore
the crisis o
which
Hardy
s
responding,
he
indulges
romanticism'santasies
of
reference,
ts
intensity
of
affect,
and
its version
of the solus
ipse,
he
solitary
self,
that seeks to reach
harmony
with nature's
rand
design.21
In
a modernist
world of
fragmentation,
uch
figures
curdle
nto
paranoia.
The sense of
compromised
nterior
space
is criticalto the
paranoid
conception
of the
subject
asa
thing
under
siege.22
t
is a
subject
hatrec-
ognizes
itself
only through
its contact with an outside force that would
eradicate
t,
whose bordersbecome
visible
in
the outline cast
by
the sur-
rounding
army
of threats.
Thus,
even
memory,
which would seem to be
the
impregnable
ore,
the means
by
which the
subject
recognizes
tself,
is shown
in
1984 to be under the control of the state.
If
the
production
of
memory
is
a
wellspring
of both modernismand
romanticism,
n
1984
we
see a failure
to
produce
such
a
grounding memory,
either
through
recollectingan individualpastor defininga textualpresentthat can be
controlled
by
the
individual.
The
reduction
of
memory
to
an
alterable
text
destabilizes oth character
nd
setting.
In
1984,
the
public past
has
been
successfully
overwritten
by
the
authorities,
as in the case
of
Jones,
Aaronson,
and Rutherford.Theold man
in
the bar
possessesnothing
but
a
"rubbish
heap
of
details"
62)
that are of no use to Winston.
Though
he
seeks
to
embrace
he
pastthrough
he
antiques
n
the
junk shop, hrough
his encounterwith the old man
in
the
bar,
or
through
historical
records,
they suggestonly the extent to which the pasthas been effectivelycolo-
nized.
Neither
can
Winston's
private
history
withstand
the
Party's
assault
on
memory.
Although
Winston
manages
o
remember
ragments
of his
personal
history
n
dreams,
uch as
the
"dark,
lose-smelling
room"
(107)
where
he
last saw
his mother
and heardhis sister's feeblewail"
(109)
as
he fled
with
the stolen
chocolate,
even these will be
subject
to
seizure.
"You suffer
from a
defective
memory"
(163),
O'Brien tells
him in
the
interrogation cene;theseprivatememorieswill be replacedby love for
Big
Brother.Winstonhas
already
understoon
he
implications
of
this
ef-
facement,
thinking:
349
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Aaron S.
Rosenfeld
when
memory
failed and written records
were
falsified-when
that
happened,
the claim
of the
Party
to have
improved
human
life had
got
to be
accepted,
because
there
did not
exist,
and
could never
again
exist,
any
standard
against
which it could be
measured.
(63)
Paranoia
n
Orwell's
formulation
provides
an answer
to this
destabilization.
Its
rigid
architectonics
of narrative
underdetermine
character,
stabilizing
it: a
multiplicity
of
signs
is reduced
to a
paucity
of
meaning;
the
paranoid
is
frozen
in someone
else's
text.The
paranoid
text invokes
not
an
extra-
textual
sublime
but a
manifestation,
the
hard sheen
of surfaces.
Rather
than developing charactertoward a horizon of the real,the paranoid
text
develops
character
toward
the
horizon
of
textuality;
but,
unlike
modern-
ism
in Meisel's
formulation,
the
individual's
authority
over
the
resulting
textual
object
consists
only
in
being
named
by
it.
This
emphasis
on
textuality
makes it
no accident
that the
"plot"
of
1984
is
punctuated
by
three
texts: Winston's
diary,
Goldstein's
manual,
and
finally
Winston
himself,
as
intelligible
text to be
read
by
the
state
apparatus
(the
appendix
on
the
principles
of
Newspeak
might
count
as
a
fourth, though
it
falls outside
the
"plot"
of Winston's
demise).The
secret
diary
the
novel
begins
with
is
Winston's
effort
to
resuscitate
a notion
of
the
subject
as distinct
from environment.
But
later,Winston
and his
diary
are
both
read
by
the
thought
police,
suggesting
that
there can
be no
pri-
vate
voice that
is not
subject
to external
authority.Winston
finds
himself
unconsciously
scrawling
"DOWN
WITH
BIG BROTHER"
(14)
over
and
over
again
in
the
margins
of his
diary early
in
the
novel,
but
by
the
end he
is
absently
writing
"2+2=5"
(192)
in the dust
on the table
of the
Chestnut
Tree.This
shift
indicates
the
collapse
of a self
capable
of
oppos-
ing
itself
to the
external
reality
or of
generating
thoughts
that
escape
the
Party's
efforts
to make
language
meaningless
and
wholly
independent
of
the
individual.
"There was
no idea that
he had ever
had,
or
could
have,
that
O'Brien
had
not
long
ago
known,
examined,
rejected"
(170).
The novel
progresses
toward
this
undoing
of
agency
through
a
series
of
revelations
about
its
language.
Though
we encounter
various
compet-
ing
discourses
throughout
the
novel,
from
manuals
to interior
thought
to
dialogue, newspapers,
and
popular
songs,
they
all lead to
the same
place
within
the
text,
having
been
fabricated
and
deployed
by
the
Party.
The
versificator
produces
popular
songs
for
the
proles,
history
is
written
and
350
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Orwell,
Pynchon,
nd he Poetics f
Paranoia
rewritten
ccording
o
Party
ictates,
nd
Goldstein's
ubversive anuals
a
trapproduced y
O'Brienand
other
members f
the
Party.
venran-
dom bitsof
doggerel
annot
escape
ncorporation
nto the
design.Win-
ston cannotrememberhe restof the
shopkeeper harrington's
hyme
that
begins Orange
nd emons
ay
he bellsof St.
Clement's;"
inally,
t is
O'Brien,
he
representative
f the
Party,
ho
supplies
he
missing
ines.
The individual
ole n
language
s
conspicuously
bsent.
No book
is
producedndividually,"ccording
o
O'Brien
174);
he
implication
ere
is not that he
language
asbeen
openedup
to
multiple peakers
ho
of-
fertheirown variationsnd
consequently
onstruct communal
ongue,
but that
anguage
as been divorced rom ived
experience.
When
the
propagandaachinesout ncreasesnshoeproductionr announcehat
the
army
s
winning
he
war
against
urasia,
ingular
erceptions
ecome
meaningless
ecause here s
nothing
other han
anguage
n which
to
ground
hem.
"Reality
s not
external,"
'Brien
ays
165);
but he also
goes
on to
say
hat
reality
xists
"[n]ot
n the
individual
mind,
whichcan
make
mistakes,
nd
n
any
case
oon
perishes;
it exists]
nly
n
the mind
of
the
Party,
hich
s collective nd mmortal"
165).23
Newspeak'slay
with
language-though
onstricted nd
oyless-is
the meansbywhich thereal s to be made naccessible.t complements
doublethink,
hich s
the
telling
of
deliberateies while
genuinely elieving
hem,
o
forget
any
actthathasbecome
nconvenient,
nd
hen,
when it
becomes
necessary
gain,
o
draw t back rom
oblivion or
ust
so
long
as t
is
needed,
o
deny
he
existence
f
objective
eality
andall the while
to
takeaccount f the
reality
which
one denies.
(143)
What
s
described
ere s a
poetics
of
signification
hat s both
complete
in
itself
and,
paradoxically,
ndependent
f
anyobjective ignified,
xcept
insofar s the
languagemplies
a
doublethinkingpeaker.
oublethink
erases ll claims o an
extralinguistic
eal.
This
s
sadism irected t
language.
n
fact,
he
sadistic,
aranoid
le-
ment of
1984'sworld
s
directed
mphatically
t
literaryanguage.
he
literature
f
the
past
s
being
translatednto
Newspeak;
yme
explains
toWinston, Chaucer,hakespeare,ilton,Byron-they'llexistonlyin
Newspeak
versions,
ot
merelychanged
nto
something
different,
ut
actually hanged
nto
something
ontradictory
f what
they
used o be"
351
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Orwell,
Pynchon,
nd he Poetics
f Paranoia
What was
more,
I
actually
had a
feeling
they
were afterme al-
ready.
The whole lot of
them All the
people
who
couldn't
un-
derstand
why
a
middle-aged
man with false teeth should sneak
awayfor a quietweek in the placewhere he spenthisboyhood.
And all
the
mean-mindedbastardswho couldunderstand
nly
too
well,
and
who'd
raiseheaven and earthto
prevent
t.
They
were
all on
my
track.
t
was as
if
a
huge army
were
streaming
up
the roadbehind
me. I seemed to see
them in
my
mind's
eye.
Hilda was
in
front,
of
course,
with the kids
tagging
after
her,
and
Mrs.Wheeler
driving
her forward
with a
grim,
vindictive
expression,
nd
Miss
Minns
rushingalong
in
the
rear,
with
her
pince-nez slippingdown and a look of distress n herface, ike
the hen that
gets
left
behind
when the others have
got
hold
of
the bacon
rind.
And Sir
Herbert
Crum and
the
higher-ups
of
the
Flying
Salamander
n
their
Rolls-Royces
and
Hispano-Sui-
zas.And
all the
chaps
at the
office,
and all the
poor
down-trod-
den
pen-pushers
rom EllesmereRoad and
from all
other such
roads,
ome of
them
wheeling
prams
and
mowing-machines
and concrete
garden-rollers,
ome
of
them
chugging
along
in
little Austin Sevens.And all the soul-savers ndNosey Parkers,
the
people
whom
you've
never seen but rule
your
destiny
all
the
same,
he
Home
Secretary,
cotlandYard,
he
Temperance
League,
he
Bank of
England,
Lord
Beaverbrook,
Hitler
and
Stalinon a tandem
bicycle,
the bench of
Bishops,
Mussolini,
he
Pope-they
were
all afterme.
I
could almosthear them shout-
ing:
"There'sa
chap
who thinks he's
going
to
escape
There's
a
chapwho sayshe won't be streamlined.He'sgoing back to Low-
er Binfield After him
Stop
him "
(205--06)26
Here,
as
in
1984,
the desireto returnto the
past
is thwarted
by
a
ubiq-
uitous network
of authorities
and
informants.
n
fact,
Bowling
will find
that
the
fishing
holes
and houses
he
remembers
have
already
been
fouled
by
the same
type
of industrialmiddle-class
development
he is
escaping.
ComingUp
for
Air
also
provides
us
with an earlierversion
of
Big
Brother.
Bowling speaks arcastically
f
the
"god"
of
the
Hesperides
Es-
tates,
he
subsidized,
middle-class
housing project
where
he
now
lives,
as
a
"queer
sort of
god
... bisexual ...
[t]he
top
half would be a
managing
353
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Aaron S. Rosenfeld
director and the bottom
half
would be
a
wife
in
the
family way"
(13).
In
1984,
the order is reversed. Instead
of
seeking
to
escape
from the
tyranny
of a
hermaphroditic
god,Winston
embraces it.
Perhaps
most
significantly,
n
ComingUp or
Air Orwell
provides
n
emblem
of
the
collapse
f boundaries etween
he
private
nd
public
worlds hat becomesrealized
n a
grander
cale
n
1984.
Returning
home,
Bowling
witnesseshe aftermathf
a
bomb's
xplosion
n
Lower
Binfield.The
explosion
has
ripped
he wall off a house
"as
neatly
as if
someone
had
done it with a knife"
264).
The
guts
of
the houseareex-
posed
to
Bowling's
iew:"andwhat was
extraordinary
as that
n
the
upstairs
ooms
nothing
hadbeen
touched.
t was
ust
ike
ooking
nto a
doll'shouse"264). n 1984 thisexposures appliedo character:They
could
ay
bare
n
the utmostdetail
verything
hat
you
haddone or said
or
thought;
ut the
inner
heart,
whose
workings
were
mysterious
ven
to
yourself,
emained
mpregnable"
111).
In
1984 Orwell
ullypulls
down the wall
of
the houseand of
the
subject
o
reveal,
n
a
perverse
witchon
the
family
omance,
he
subject's
true
home n
the
law.
1984closeswith
Winston'successfuleturn
o the
bosom
of
"family."
he
regressive
approchement
f
the novel
unpacks
Freud'sogicofparanoia,"Iovehim, hatehim,hehatesme" Three ase
Histories
39-40).27
t
moves
romWinston's
eeling
hat
he is the
object
of hostile urveillancendcontrol o
anactive
truggle gainst ig
Brother
and
inally
o
an
embrace:He
gazedup
atthe enormousace.
Forty ears
it
had taken
him
to learnwhat kind of smilewas hiddenbeneath he
dark
moustache.
Cruel,
needless
misunderstanding.
stubborn,
elf-
willedexile
from
he
loving
breast"
197).28
he"enormous
ace"
ignals
that
he
sight
ine
belongs
o the
suckling
nfant,
ut
Big
Brothers also
a lover("He ovedBigBrother"197]),a brother"theBrotherhood"),
and
he
fatherwhose aw
Winston
mbraces.
ulfilling
chreber's
antasy
of identification ith
God,Winston
vacuates imself
n
order o
merge
with the
object
of his fear.
In
fact,
he evacuation f Winston's
owels
andbile
is a
recurring
motif
hroughout.)
ere,
he GodWinston nters
is
the
law,
an
empty ign,
no more
han
a
face
on the
telescreen.
he
law
of thefather tands
lways
before"he
paranoid;
e
accepts
his
condition,
choosing
dentification
ather
hanthe
struggle
or
autonomy.29
t
the
endof thenovel,Winstonits nthe Chestnut reeCafe: he"chest-nut,"
the
heart,
urrounds
inston,
e
doesnot surround
t. It
is
the
fulfillment
of
O'Brien's
earlier
prophecy:"Do
you
see that
thing facing you?
That is
354
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Orwell,
Pynchon,
nd he
Poetics f Paranoia
the last
man.
If
you
are
human,
hat
is
humanity"
187).
Admitting
defeat
in the will to
recovery,
Orwell
chronicles he last
gasp
of
a romantic
pres--
ence
in
the novel.
Postmodernism,
mphasizing
xcessesof
signification,
enerates
themat-
ics
and
a
poetics
that
is
even
more
highly susceptible
han
modernism o
paranoia,
o the
portrayal
f
reading
as
plot.
If modernist
paranoia
s an at-
tempt
to
preserve
n older model of the
subject, ostmodern
paranoia
will
look somewhatdifferent rom Orwell'sversion.
In
this
section,
I
want to
briefly
examine anothertextualavatar f
paranoia, ynchon's
The
Crying
of
Lot
49,
focusing
on
severaldifferences etween it and
Orwell'sversion
of
paranoia
and on the
implications
of these differences.
Pynchon's
ext
operates
at the
juncture
of modernismand
postmod-
ernismrather han that of romanticism nd modernism.30
Again,paranoia
registers
he
disruptions
caused
by
the
shifting grounds
underneath he
subject.
In
a
singleday,
how
many
non-signifying
ieldsdo we cross?
Very
few,
sometimes
none,"
Roland Bartheswrote
in
1957
(112);
t is as if the
world has
increasingly
made itselfamenable o
being
read ike anovel.As
the
sense of the
subject
constructed
n
and
through
an encounter with
signs
becomes
pervasive,
t is the modernist
subject-patching signs
nto
coherence,
shoring fragmentsagainst
he ruins-who is under
siege,
in
need of rescue.
As Brian McHale
notes,
Pynchon's
iction is
structuredaroundthe
tension between a desire for the textual
unity
of
modernism-a text
that makes
sense-and
the
proliferation
f
signs.
The
Crying f
Lot
49 is
built arounda set of codes thatgivesthe appearance f unitybut in fact
could
simply
be a randomcollection of
signs,
he
posthumouspulsing
of
Inverarity's
ame.Oedipa,
n
turn,
strugglesmightily
o
replace
a
narrative
coherence that has been lost to the
multiple
connections.
Driving
to
San
Narciso,
Oedipa
resolves"to
pull
in
at the next motel she
saw,
however
ugly,
tillnessand four walls
having
become
preferable
t this
point
to this
illusion of
speed,
freedom,
wind
in
your
hair,
unreeling andscapes"
26).
For
Wordsworth he
"scanty
plot"
of
ground promises
a
deeper
reality,
but for Oedipa the "scantyplot"of the four walls representsa blessed
relief from
the
proliferation
of
signs. Pynchon
imagines
Wordsworth's
"narrow convent room" not as a source of the aesthetic sublime but as
355
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AaronS.
Rosenfeld
an
escape, fixing
of
untrammeled
ossibilities.What
s to be
contained
is
Oedipa
herself,
he motel
room
functioning
ike
the
tupperware
hat
opens
he novel.
Oedipa
eeks o know
herself,
othasthe
material
ody
that
Pynchon's
extwithholds-she is never
physically
escribed-and
as the
material
rounding
or her
disembodied
motions.Like
Driblette,
who wants
o
"give
he
spirit
lesh"
79),
Oedipa
s
looking
ora
narrative
framework
hatwill
support
er
desire or
connection.
If
Pynchon's
haracters
epresent
his
yearning,
o doesthe
rhetoric
of the
text
itself.
By
constructing
n
elaborately
ross-referenced
uzzle
thatseems
o reveal ew
unitieswith each
reading, ynchon's
ext
both
validatesnd
ronizes
he
quest
or
meaning.
eo
Bersani's
eading
f
para-
noia n Gravity'sainbow akesustsucha claim or
paranoia,
nd t isa
claim
hat
distinguishes
ynchon's
ersion
f
paranoia
rom
Orwell's:
It
is,
then,
only
within
he
paranoid
tructure
tself-and
not
in
some
extra-paranoid
yth
suchas ove
or
anarchicandom-
ness-that we
can
begin
to resist he
persecutions
hich
para-
noia
magines,
nd,
more
subtly,
uthorizes.
("Pynchon"
09)
For
Bersani,
he
paranoid
ove
s to
"combine
pposition
ith
doubling"
(108), he visiblebecominga deceptivedoubleof the"real."aranoia,
then,
provides
or a
"modelof
unreadability,
convincing
ailure f self-
knowledge"
118)
that
allows or the
maintenance f the
subject
n
a
fluid
stateof
becoming.
he novel
ends
ust
before he
actual
rying
of
lot
49.Wereturn
o what
poses
asa
moment
of
ontological
ertainty,
he
title,
venasthe
novel
resistshe
closure,
he
momentof
self-identity
hat
the
title
promises.
ndeed,
or
Pynchon
n
The
Crying f
Lot
49,
paranoia
becomes
a mode of
knowing
hat,
at
least
provisionally,
ccepts
he
rhe-
toricalgroundof postmodernisms a richnew fieldfor theexercise f
modernist
eading.
s
Dr.
Hilarius
otes,
"in
relative
aranoia
.. at
least
I
knowwho
I
am and
who
the othersare"
136).
The
"knowing" yn-
chon
representsoints
n
two
directions t once: t
is both
knowledge
f
a
perfect
ext
that
might
still
evokeor
map
onto
a world
of humans
nd
knowledge
f the
necessity
f
text,
with
ts
nfinite
deferrals,
n
construct-
ing
subjectivities.
The
scene n
the
bathroom t
Echo
Courts,
when
Oedipa
cannot
findher mage n themirror,mblematizeshedifferenceetweenPyn-
chon
and
Orwell. At
some
point
she
went into the
bathroom,
riedto
find her
image
in
the mirror
andcouldn't.
She
had a moment
of
nearly
356
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Orwell,
Pynchon,
and
the Poetics of Paranoia
pure
terror.Then she remembered that the mirror had
broken and fallen
in
the
sink"
(41).
Art no
longer
holds a mirror
up
to
nature;
the mirror
is shattered.
If art is to be
renewed,
it
will
not be because the texts make
sense,
but because
Oedipa
chooses to read them as if
they
do.The narcis-
sistic
presumption
of
centrality
that
underpins
paranoia
here
gives
birth to
semiotic
solipsism.Though
the mirror has
shattered,
Oedipa
will
continue
to
read,
her
(and
the
text's)
paranoia
a
shoring
of
fragments against
the ru-
ins.
Pynchon's
coherent
subject,
as McHale
argues,
s a
modernist,
at home
in
a world of
signs.
Pynchon
answers the
paranoid
tendency
to allow
language
to
ossify
into a frozen
stringency
with a kind of
hyperparanoia,
the
riotous
capacity
of the word to
generate
new
meanings,
new secrets.
It is this
playfulness
that
finally distinguishes Pynchon's
version of
paranoia
from Orwell's. Pierce
Inverarity
remains forever out of reach in
The
Crying of
Lot
49-Oedipa
will continue to
stumble over his
tracks,
conspiracies
will continue to be nurtured in the
back halls of bureau-
cracy,
but we will never
get
to the heart of
the
plot.
There
is no
lifting
of the curtain to reveal a
Big
Brother at whose
loving
breast
Winston
suckles
in
the last lines of 1984.
Finally,
the networks are too
complex
and
untraceable;
as for
Hardy, paranoia
is more a wish
than a successful
practice.The
"scanty
plot"
of the
paranoid
becomes a
potential
means of
containing
narrative,
a
sea wall
against
the tides of
signs
that threaten to
wash
away
the
subject. Though
Oedipa
may
never
fix
herself
in
or to
the
world,
hope
resides
in
the fact that
metaphor
can connect
anything:
"Our
beauty
lies
... in
this
extended
capacity
for
convolution,"
the child
star turned
lawyer
Metzger
observes. Paranoia
simultaneously
promises
to
unpack
the convolution and to
reify
it.
In
Pynchon's
ew introductiono
1984,
he
observes
hat
Big
Brother
and the system he presides over "put the whole question of soul, of what
we
believe to be an inviolable inner core of the
self,
into harsh
and ter-
minal doubt"
(xxiii).
But for
Pynchon,
such an
"inviolable core" remains
a
possibility
in The
Cryingof
Lot
49,
because
signs
are
finally
fluid,
entro-
pic,
simultaneously
demanding
and
resisting paranoia'sattempts
at
fixing.
There is still a future
hope
that
a coherent
subject
will materialize within
or out of
the text. In
place
of Orwell's
grim monologicity, Pynchon's
postmodern paranoia
offers an
intertextuality
capable
of
forging
new
pos-
sibilities for connection and play, he endangered subject safely stowed be-
hind the walls
of
text.
If
there is
a
melancholy
that attaches to
Pynchon's
project,
it
properly
belongs
to
modernism,
to the sense that there is an
357
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Aaron S. Rosenfeld
unspeakable
ossat the heart f
narrative,
"postmodern
ublime,"
n
Marc
Redfield's
hrase
159),
hat s
always et
be
recovered.31
f
postmodern-
ismasksus
to
perceive
extswithina framework
fjouissance,
here
igns
dartanddance,weaving simulacrumf theworld hat s liberating,t
is modernism
hat
combs he text for evidenceof
design.
The
author s
buried
but not
dead,
n
Pynchon's
ords,
likeMaxwell's emon .. the
linking
eature
n
a coincidence"
120-21).
This
paranoia
f the
postmodern
mbraces
he
worldof
signs
hat
Orwell
truggles
gainst.
f
The
Crying f
Lot49 is
a
"critique
f
episte-
mology"
O'Donnell
7),
t is alsoa defense f the
subject
s reader. ut
in
Orwell's
ext,
t
is not
fluidity
ut
rigidity
hat
paranoiamposes,
with
reading correlateorbeingread.This ifferenceuts o the heartof the
distinction etweenOrwell's
aranoia
nd thatof the
postmodern:
or
the
revanchistomanticn
Orwell,
he
signs
hemselves re he
problem,
the markof a world hat
hascome too muchto resemble
novelanda
subject
hathascome too much
o resemble character.
It is
significant
hat n
the scenewith which
I
began
he discussionf
1984,
it is
seemingly
he
picture
hat
speaks
ack. f
Oedipa
cannot ee
herself
n
the
frame,Winston's
ook
yields
up
an
all-too-objective
eflec-
tion.UnlikeOedipa, isroleasreader asbeenfatally ompromisedy
the shiftof
authority
rom he
viewer o the work.Art
speaks,
Winston
can
only
isten.For
Orwell,
till
suspended
etween omantic ndmod-
ernist
poetics, aranoia
akes n a
darker
incture,
ecoming
he record
f
the
struggle
o rescue rom
modernist
oetics
a
subject
hatexists
outside
of
text."Youare outside
history,"
'Brien ells
Winston
179),
but to
return o
history
s to be destabilizedn
the
rewriting
f it.
Anticipat-
ing
HaroldBloom's
nfluence
model,
n
which the
strong
poet
wrestles
withprecursor oets,Orwell's aranoias thesymptom f a momentof
aesthetic ontention. f for
Bloom the
struggle
s with the
past,
Orwell
alsocontendswith the future.t is not
only
the voiceof his
forebears
hat
assails
Orwell,
t is
also
the
voice
that
would"swerve" s Bloom
would
put
it,
and
rewrite he
past
o whichhe is committed.
Orwell's
masterpiece
esides ot
just
at a crucial
emporal-historical
juncture
ut alsoat the intersection f the
competingiterary
iscourses
thatcollide n
Orwell
he artist.
O'Brien's omment Menare
nfinitely
malleable"179)resonates otjustwith totalitarianresumptionsbout
humanity
ut
also
iterature's:
inston's
light
becomesan
allegory
or
the
changing
structures
by
which men are
generated
anew in
each era.
358
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8/19/2019 The Scanty Plot: Orwell, Pynchon and the Poetics of Paranoia
24/32
Orwell,
Pynchon,
and
the Poetics of
Paranoia
The
paranoid poetics
of 1984 enact this tension as well at the
structural
level,
staging
a
struggle
with modernist
poetics
that
produces,
instead of a
bildungsroman
in
which character is
forged
via the
gaining
of
knowledge
through
the encounter with
"life,"
a reverse
bildungsroman
in which
character s diminished to a
vanishing point
of
textuality.
Modernism shat-
ters the
romantic,
lyric
voice;
out of the
fragments
Orwell reconstructs a
romantic
version of textual sense
to
replace
"essence."The
signs may
be
blowing apart,
but
by
reading
them as
indicative
of
a
plot
directed toward
the
solitary
individual,
Orwell reclaims
a
grandiose,
utopian
centrality
for
Winston.Then,
though
the radical
passivity
that
governs
the
text-Win-
ston is not the
reader but
the
read-affords
Winston
a no less
central
position,
it is the
centrality
of the inmate. Orwell's
"scanty plot"
becomes
a
prison-house
for the romantic
subject.
Notes
1.
See
Pynchon's
new introduction o 1984 for the
most recent
example.
Also
see William Steinhoff.Alex
Zwerdlinggives
an excellent account of Orwell's
relationship
o
politics
in
Orwell nd the
Left,
ocusing particularly
n his
strug-
gle to adapt iction to politicalendsduringthe 1930s and 40s.
2.
Raymond
Williams,
on the
other
hand,
claimsthat Orwell fails to
recognize
the materialrelationsof his own created
world,
chalkingup
this failure o his
"obsession
with
ideology"
(77).
3.
By
using
the word
poetics
ere,
I
mean to
say
that
the novel's
paranoiaap-
pears
not
only
in its
theme, characters,
r
subject
matter
(though
it does
appear
in
each of
these)
but also that it
appears
n
what Peter
Brooks calls the
"logic
of narrative"
21):
as a
dynamic
structural nd
syntactic
element
that
parallels,
rehearses, nd illuminatesparanoidpsychic organization 3-36). In an effort to
move
beyond
traditional
ormalism,
Brooks
articulates relationbetween
the
movementsof desireand those of
narrative.He
suggests
hat
in
"plot"
we see
a
working through
and out of a
hermeneuticcode that draws ts
energy
from
psychic
economies of desire.
David
Shapiro's
nfluentialbook Neurotic
tyles
s
also
seminal
n
enabling
a considerationof
paranoia
not as a
clinical
designa-
tion but as a set of formal
operations.
Shapiro
drawsattentionto the formal
qualities
nherent
n
such
categories
as
"suspicious
ognition,""projection,"
"biasedattention"
59),"lack
of
spontaneity,"
nd"disdain or the obvious"
(64),
identifying
he attendant
operations
as hallmarks f
paranoid
modes of
thinking.My
description
below draws
heavily
on
Shapiro.
359
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8/19/2019 The Scanty Plot: Orwell, Pynchon and the Poetics of Paranoia
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Orwell,
Pynchon,
and
the Poetics of Paranoia
Much
of the wealth
of recent criticalwork
focuses on Americanmani-
festations
of
paranoia,
ncluding anthologies
edited
by George
Marcusand
by
Jane
Parish
and MartinParker.
notable
exception
is Trotter'swork
discussed
above.Takinganothertack,LindaFisher ocatesparanoiawithin the herme-
neutical
"tradition
f
suspicion"
109)
growing
out
of
Marx,Nietszche,
and
Freudand
carried orward
by
Ricoeur
and Gadamer.
Building
on these theo-
ries,
t is
paranoia
as a
"literary" athology
that
most interestsme here.
8.While
romanticism
nd modernism
are both
obviously
contentious
cat-
egories,
I want to deal with
them here as
constituting
a fluid but
recognizable
set of characteristic
ropes,
igures,
andstructures.
s
precedent
or
this,
I
am
following
the
approach
aken
by
criticssuch
as Ihab Hassan
"Toward
Con-
cept of Postmodernism")or modernismandpostmodernismandWellek for
romanticism.
For
Wellek,
romanticism
s
characterized
y "imagination
or the
view of