4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant effort in joining litcrit and history, August 1, 2000
This review is from: The Final Frontier: The Rise and Fall of the American Rocket State (Haymarket Series) (Hardcover)
Dale Carter's excellent "The Final Frontier" traces the history of the US space and aeronautics program from the end of the Second World War onwards, using Thomas Pynchon's magnificent novel "Gravity's Rainbow" as a jumping-off point.
One of the reasons that "Gravity's Rainbow" is such an extraordinary book is Pynchon's remarkable insight into the links between what was to become during the 50s and 60s the US military-industrial complex (exemplified in the book by characters such as Clayton "Bloody" Chiclitz) and the Nazi rocket programme. Pynchon's historical imagination is more vivid and sensitive than any other living American novelist, and GR is the book in which all his gifts spectacularly coalesce. Carter takes the ball and runs with it, showing with admirable concision and clarity how US fears of global subordination during the post-war period expressed themselves in both popular culture (the sudden explosion in UFO sightings post-1947, the amazing growth of science fiction, the baby boom and industrial slump) and in government policy. He carries the rise of what he calls the Rocket State up until the Challenger disaster of 1986. At the time, the loss of the Challenger (and its token Ordinary-Person-as-Crewmember, the schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe) provoked a resurgence in public support for the space program. But in the 14 years since then (and in the 12 since this book was published), it's become fairly clear that the space program has perhaps permanently lost its old appeal for the mass of the American public. Economic recession and domestic problems can no longer be brushed aside with the promise of a new life in space (even Homer Simpson at his lowest ebb dreamt of living under the sea, rather than on Mars.)
The rocket may or may not be permanently tarnished, but Carter's book is an excellent exposition of the factors that helped to reinforce and preserve its appeal. It's also one of the very few essential books about Pynchon's novel, which tends to attract the attention of slow-witted deconstructionists rather than clued-up materialist historians.
The only tiny quibble I have is that Carter is apparently blind to one of the most pervasive features of GR - its relentless sense of humour. While it's true that Pynchon analyses with great acuity the forces in industry and government that converged on the rocket program, he does so with such irrepressible mischief that the reader is left in severe doubt of what to think. But that's a subject for another book.
The US space program has stalled since the late 80s, plagued by cost-cutting and media neglect. It's hard to see how Carter's book could be usefully revised when so little of major significance has happened in the meantime, unless he were to turn his attention to the new paranoia of alien abduction syndrome and its putative links to advanced aviation technology (and if anyone could do it, it's him - if he hasn't done it already). But it's of great interest both to Pynchon fans and those interested in linking up the forces at work in post-war US history. (Which, the US being as powerful as it is, includes most of the rest of the world.)
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