When I first began this project or *ahem* Exploration, I thought the presence of medieval and early modern literary tropes in the novel meant the postmodern movement was situated on a pendulum. The use of The Great Chain of Being and Fortune’s Wheel meant that the trajectory of our literary tradition had swung out to its amplitude with the postmodern and the bob of the pendulum had begun to swing back. The result: a falling back on literary tropes despite efforts to be or move beyond them. 

This is evident with the “hyper-secularism” of the novel.  Pynchon’s novel is described by many as “secular”, but that in its intense secularism the pendulum swings back to a faith in something suspiciously resembling organized religion. Just as a  push for modernity in the novel that results in the use of medieval tropes, the characters fall back to placing faith and reverence in entities mirroring religion. It is a trade off instead of expelling or denouncing of a practice.

But…. 

Can it also be a wheel?  Instead of an out and back motion that is assumed to settle to its “fixed point” it is a perpetual cycling or recycling. Postmodern is at the to of the wheel, but Fortune keeps at the crank allowing other movements, eras, ideas to rise up from the depths. A recursive motion that does not dismiss a figure on the wheel as being gone or past, but rather just waiting. What does that mean for how we as readers, writers, academics, HUMANS think about literary movements?

Each figure on the wheel has their moment seated at the top, and when humanity watches the wheel turn there is an understanding that the figure is not banished forever to “the past”.

I do not know which mental model I fully believe. If either are true that means medieval and early modern scholars have avenues into contemporary conversations which is a glimmer of hope for my future academic career.

So, pendulum or wheel?

A swinging out and back or round and round

I’ll let you think on it