Paperware to Vaporware, The Nativity of Tyrone Slothrop
– 6 –
If Thomas Pynchon actually was scanning through the Ephemeris looking for dates
with unusual constellations in the month of Virgo, or even discussed this idea
with an astrologer, did he so choose a specific or a random date? It is a
question that perhaps never will be answered. Either way, in 1918 in the month
of early Virgo there were many unusual stellar combinations allowing unlimited
literary fantasies; such as those projected on the biography, character and
destiny of Tyrone Slothrop as the reader experiences his Odyssey in
Gravity’s Rainbow.
James Joyce created a
Bloomsday.
Did Thomas Pynchon secretly have in mind a “Slothropday!?”
We know of Slothrops
I Ching,
“Youthful Folly” [378] as well as a part of his
Tarot,
The Fool covered by the 3 of Pentacles upside down and, most unhappily of all,
the Hanged Man
reversed
at the position of his secret hopes and fears [738]. While reading Youthful
Folly in the classic Richard Wilhelm translation, I instinctively felt the only
line capable of changing is the
Six in the fourth place:
Entangled folly brings humiliation
“For youthful folly it is the most hopeless thing to entangle itself in
empty imaginings. The more obstinately it clings to such unreal fantasies, the
more certainly will humiliation overtake it.
Often a teacher, when confronted with such entangled folly, has no other course
but to leave the fool to himself for a time, not sparing him the humiliation
that results. This is frequently the only means of rescue.”
This changing line transforms hexagram #4, Mêng – Youthful Folly
(MOUNTAIN over WATER), into hexagram #64, Wei Chi – Before Completion
(FIRE over WATER). Strangely enough, or not so strangely enough, this is the
last hexagram of the
I Ching
– BEFORE COMPLETION!
“This hexagram indicates a time when the transition from disorder to order
is not yet completed. The change is indeed prepared for, since all the lines in
the upper triagram are in relation to those in the lower. However, they are not
yet in their places.
Before completion, at the dawning of the new time, friends foregather in an
atmosphere of mutual trust, and the time of waiting is passed in conviviality.
Since the new era is hard on the threshold, there is no blame in this. But one
must be careful in all to keep within proper bounds. If in his exuberance a man
gets drunk, he forfeits the favorableness of the situation through his
intemperance.”
Note: “[…] The hexagram BEFORE COMPLETION represents a transition
from chaos to order. This hexagram comes at the end of the Book of Changes. It
points to the fact that every end has a new beginning. Thus it gives hope to
men. The Book of Changes is a book of the future.”
It sure looks like Pynchon did his homework on the
I Ching.
I mean Youthful Folly is both an obvious link to the Fool (card 0, "Zero") in
the Tarot and to a twelfth-house double Virgo with a
retrograde Mercury,
the
ruling planet,
also in the Twelfth House in its own sign of Virgo. This triple inter-related
esoteric combination climaxes in Bodine’s statement (the last one to hold
on) “Most of the others gave up long ago trying to hold him together, even
as a concept – It’s just got too remote‘” [740]. On the
highest level, Youthful Folly, The Fool and a Virgo twelfth-house retrograde
Mercury are one and the same entity: a
poor Fucker
scattered between salvation/perdition of which fragments of him have grown,
and are still growing, into consistent personae of their own. Yes, even the
ultimate level is contained in this combination – resurrection and
reincarnation!! “Before Completion” – as the changing line in
the
I Ching
designates – every end has a new beginning.
Remember, in his Tarot, despite being covered by mediocrity and a long and
scuffling future, it is at the point of secret hopes & fears where the Hanged
Man is reversed. In the Celtic Cross spread, hopes & fears is the
second-to-last point, step, or indicator. The “World” is the final
position. We are not told what card appeared here but may well assume, with a
Pynchonesque smile, the card to be the 23rd card of the Major Arcanum, the
Gross Suckling
!! He fears preterition, commerce and false prophecy; yet hopes for true
sacrifice, the proper cause. That the
Gross Suckling
should be awaiting Slothrop at the point of the world (this World or the Other
World?!), and what this actually might signify (genetical mutation?) is a
matter for future conferees seeking evidence and having insight to determine.
[706-7, 738]
Without considering it beforehand (honestly), the combined number of his birth
date, 31/8/1918, just happens to be a
“4”
– the number of the Earth; and coincidently enough also the number of
Youthful Folly,
Slothrop’s I Ching! Once again, this World or the Other World? For many
numerologists, #
4
is the most boring, mediocre number – trapped in the physical material
frame of existence. We do have the four elements, the four Archangels, the four
points of the compass, and the four arms of the
cross.
Slothrop did travel North, became his
own
cross, a living intersection actually, was
stripped
and ultimately it was doubtful if he could ever be “positively identified
and detained” [712]. The #
4
inverted, upside down – look at it, sort of resembles the
Hanged Man
with one arm [of the cross] missing, doesn’t it?! ... and I will leave it
at that. . . .
