Death is Pervasive

I found the title of this story quite funny since currently we are testing over Entropy, Thermodynamics, and Energy (ATP) in my biology course so somethings others might not pick up on like a law of thermodynamics being that energy can not be created or destroyed of entropy in essences being the measure of chaos in a system most likely in molecular biology. Hence when atoms or molecules split and are less ordered and more chaotic entropy goes up, just some fun fact. But this connection was important to me as the connection between both readings, this story was complex. I had to reread portions because the sheer genius of Pynchon is a lot to take in especially for someone who's never read anything by him before (but plans to read more). "He was aware of the dangers of the reductive fallacy and, he hoped, strong enough not to drift into the graceful decadence of an enervated fatalism" (3026). That's one of those I had to reread to fully understand. But this complex line is exactly what this story and Gorey's children's alphabet book are about...DEATH. The uncontrollable, ever impending idea of death. Entropy is always increasing in our cosmos, because things are constantly falling apart including ourselves. This concept must be accepted, it's something Gorey expressed to children and it's something Callisto is and has accepted for himself. 

This story is incredibly deep and there is so much more to it, the music for instance. There is a clear difference between upstairs and downstairs music and how it relates to what's happening to the, a level of education and the idea of what's happening outside of themselves. Never once do the people downstairs have a thought for their neighbors and how they must be disrupting them and yet the noise intrusion isn't something the upstairs neighbors can easily ignore. I enjoyed this story and it's depth but this is definitely something I will need to reread a few times to fully absorb and this author is most certainly someone that I would enjoy looking into for more of their work. 

ps. I loved that their was a Navy Boatswain mate in this story since that's what my husband does for a living and most people can't even pronounce his job much less spell it correctly and understand what it is. Just a cool little blurb I thought neat. 

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Callisto

I've been wondering why Pynchon chose the same 'Callisto' for one of his protagonists.  From what I could remember on my own (and then looked up to confirm) Callisto was a woman who, after being tricked by Zeus, was turned into a bear for getting pregnant, and gave birth to her son (Arcas).  Years later her son was hunting and came upon the bear, not knowing her to be his mother, he almost killed the bear but just before he could Zeus intervened and made them both into the constellations of Ursa Minor and Major.
Applying this to "entropy", where the amount of heat causes the system to lose useful energy, we see the connection.  There is a lead up to something big and then the momentum doesn't stop itself, it just ends, it is cut off.  Aubade suddenly breaks the glass open with her hands, she's allowing the heat from inside to escape and the cold air outside to enter.  We don't know what this will bring the two characters, but the death of the bird and Aubade's sudden action after so much stagnation leads us to believe that it will change the course of things.  We as readers just have no idea what it will be, for the action ends.  Arcas never kills his mother but is forever in the motion of doing so, he is immortalized in the stars as "the little bear".  While he was born human, he will for eternity be the son of a bear, the child of a raped and mistreated woman, and always about to kill her.
Does Arcas seem like a better name for Pynchon's Callisto?  After all, he has the least action in Entropy, and is what cause's Aubade's pain and (seemingly) momentary lack of senses.  She is the catalyst, whereas Callisto just is.  Aubade is the one being taking advantage of, being stuck in this room taking notes with a man so caught up in his own thoughts; like Zeus using Callisto to satisfy himself. Our Callisto seems to have a lack of energy, heat, and action right from the beginning, Aubade never loses hers.  

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Entropy

This weeks story, Entropy, by Thomas Pynchon was very difficult for me to understand.  There is so much going on throughout the story.  One theme that was constant was that of chaos and order.  In Meatball Mulligan's apartment is the chaos of the party.  There is Duke, Vincent, Krinkles and Paco listening to music another group are in the kitchen playing a game a woman in the bathroom sink, passed out.  Then Saul comes in through the window.  Meatball has utter chaos that he has to deal with, "So he decided to try and keep his lease-breaking party from deteriorating into total chaos:..." (Pynchon 3031) And he sets about doing that. The feeling I get, even in the midst of all the chaos and noise of the party, is dynamic and vibrant and alive.  The direct contrast is the apartment above which is Callisto and Aubade's , "Hermetically sealed, it was a tiny enclave of regularity in the city's chaos,..." (Pynchon 3023).  They are so integral to the world they have created they can no longer leave it.  Both of them live in the past and have ceased to create anything new.  Callisto "envisioned a heatdeath for his culture in which ideas, like heat-energy, would no longer be transferred, since each point in it would ultimately have the same quantity of energy; and intellectual motion would,accordingly, cease." (Pynchon 3026)  Callisto seems to be at that point where his world is coming to an end.  He is trapped in the past instead of living in the present and being part of world around him.  Callisto has created his own "heatdeath" by sealing himself off and not being apart of the energy and noise and chaos in the world.

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Entropy: Arbitrarily Random Nature of the World

Is transition requisite to perpetrate the change of velocity per unit of time(dictionary.com)? Does one have to necessitate the rudiment drumming to forebode the introduction of the ensemble? Life does not require a prelude. Pynchon renders life in its rawest form: ever flowing. Humans do not stop beat by beat to interpret every moment of continuous manifestation of growth. Entropy is bluntly named to entail the arbitrarily random nature of the world. “‘Never the less,’ continued Callisto, “he found in entropy or the measure of disorganization for a closed system an adequate metaphor to apply to certain phenomena in his own world”(Pynchon3026). Chaos defines the reality of human nature. Phenomena is not simply a nonpareil happening, but rather a casualty within an unconfined, rhythmic journey. Pynchon’s lack of transition defines the distinction between reality and fallacy in which all is an existence of regularity. 

As Aubade “tore away the drapes and smashed out the glass with two exquisite hands which came away bleeding and glistening with splinters; and turned to face the man on the bed and wait with him until the moment of equilibrium was reached when 37 degrees Fahrenheit should prevail both outside and inside, and forever, and the hovering curious dominant of their separate lives should resolve into a tonic of darkness and the final absence of all motion”(Pynchon3032). The fate of the universe unfolds. All matter becomes homogeneous; temperature defines the fate of humanity(dictionary.com). Parallel worlds collide resulting in a doomed fate of darkness. Pynchon concludes “Entropy” in depicting the providence of mankind’s assured collapse. The congruency of the nature world simply defines the end of free thought. Are we doomed if humanity continues to fight the entropies within our own lives? Are transitions necessary to define our thought and existence?        

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