Farina

[Andrew Dinn]

John.Hamill at vuw.ac.nz writes:

> I have to agree with Andrew (I think?) on the vote for the movie of
> BDSLIFLUTM as "worst adaption of a book for film" that I have seen
> for a long time.

Wasn't me I'm afraid. I think I placed it somewhere in the top 100 for
`worst adaptation of juvenile fantasy for book' but it's no public
enemy no. 1.

> Aside from the wickedly silly blurb by Pynchon, my
> edition says something like "Comes on like a thousand kazoos with
> perfect pitch" or something like that... has anyone else noted a few
> Kute Correspondences with GR?  Or do I get the spooky feeling that a
> lot of you folks out there haven't read Farina's damned book and its
> just lurking on shelves for the sake of the introduction?

I got the impression that Pynchon might have written one or two of
Farina's jokes.

> 1. Plastic Man makes a brief appearance.

> 2. Gnossis' "exempt" status sounds significantly like "preterition"
> in another form...

> 3. Talking about gnossis... gnostic mysticism... a thematic
> connection perhaps but also reflecting a mode of allegorical naming.
> Gnossis can be seen as being involved in a form of drug gnosticism
> which has many parallels in GR.

> Of course the stylistic differences are huge... and the connections *are*
> mostly thematic (Farina seems to be trying for a Joycean style for example).

So, maybe Farina really did have a Captain Fantastic Stencillogram and
was a signed up member of the Mickey Mouse club. All Gnossos does with
these credentials is make his friends to drool over them in some 50s
kid-style game of trivial pursuit - `can you remember where you were
when Plastic Man got erased?'.  Pynchon teams Porky Pig up with the
anarchist, ferchrissake. Ditto for Gnossos and the drugs. Why is he
called Gnossos?  Because he's so hip to everything? It's not that
Farina has the themes but not the style. He only uses the hip culture
to show off...  hip culture. Only it doesn't look hip any more just
crass. Pynchon ties popular culture, drugs etc into everything else -
this is `a progressive knotting into', remember.

[And before anyone gets too suspicious - what with my middle name
being Ned and all - I'll just state up front. Knots are knots. You
can't believe or disbelieve in them (no matter how hard you try). Most
of the time you rely on them holding. Occasionally you have to try to
unravel them.]


Andrew Dinn
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