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Quote by Thomas Pynchon

“A motorcycle out on the trunk road, snarling cocky as a fighter plane, bypasses the village, heading up to London. The great balloons drift in the sky, pearl-grown, and the air is so still that this morning's brief snow still clings to the steel cables, white goes twisting peppermint-stick down thousands of feet of night. And the people who might have been asleep in the empty houses here, people blown away, some already forever... are they dreaming of cities that shine all over with lamps at night, of Christmases seen again from the vantage of children and not of sheep huddled so vulnerable on their bare hillside, so bleached by the Star's awful radiance? or of songs so funny, so lovely or true, that they can't be remembered on waking .dreams of peace time. "What was it like? Before the war?”

Book:Gravity’s Rainbow

Work

Gravity’s Rainbow

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Author

Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Pynchon is an American novelist born on May 8, 1937. His works are known for their complex narrative structures, rich symbolism, and profound social criticism. His representative works include 'The Crying of Lot 49' and 'Gravity's Rainbow'. more

“Dr. Rozsavölgyi tends to favor a powerful program over a powerful leader. Maybe because this is 1945. It was widely believed in those days that behind the War-all the death, savagery, and destruction-lay the Führer-principle. But if personalities could be replaced by abstractions of power, if techniques developed by the corporations could be brought to bear, might not nations live rationally? One of the dearest Postwar hopes: that there should be no room for a terrible disease like charisma... that its rationalization should proceed while we had the time and resources.”

War

Book:Gravity’s Rainbow

Source: Gravity’s Rainbow

“What more do they want? She asks this seriously, as if there's a real conversion factor between information and lives. Well, strange to say, there is. Written down in the Manual, on file at the War Department. Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of mar-kets. Organic markets, carefully styled "black" by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers.”

War

Book:Gravity’s Rainbow

Source: Gravity’s Rainbow

“Unlike earlier wars. in which there Were political alms either of conquest or domination. what is at stake in this one is war itself: its status, its meaning. its future. It is beholden not to have an objective but to prove its very existence (this crisis of identity affects the existence ofus all). In effect, it has lost much of its credibility.”

War

Author:Jean Baudrillard

“У меня в Москве — купола горят! У меня в Москве — колокола звонят! И гробницы в ряд у меня стоят, — В них царицы спят, и цари. И не знаешь ты, что зарёй в Кремле Легче дышится — чем на всей земле! И не знаешь ты, что зарёй в Кремле Я молюсь тебе — до зари! И проходишь ты над своей Невой О ту пору, как над рекой-Москвой Я стою с опущенной головой, И слипаются фонари. Всей бессонницей я тебя люблю, Всей бессонницей я тебе внемлю — О ту пору, как по всему Кремлю Просыпаются звонари… Но моя река — да с твоей рекой, Но моя рука — да с твоей рукой Не сойдутся, Радость моя, доколь Не догонит заря — зари. 7 мая 1916 At home in Moscow - where the domes are burning, at home in Moscow - in the sound of bells, where I live the tombs - in their rows are standing and in them Tsaritsas - are asleep and tsars. And you don't know how - at dawn the Kremlin is the easiest place to - breathe in the whole wide earth and you don't know when - dawn reaches the Kremlin I pray to you until - the next day comes and I go with you - by your river Neva even while beside - the Moscow river I am standing here - with my head lowered and the line of street lights - sticks fast together. With my insomnia - I love you wholly. With my insomnia - I listen for you, just at the hour throughout - the Kremlin, men who ring the bells - begin to waken, Still my river - and your river still my hand - and your hand will never join, or not until one dawn catches up another dawning.”