(helio)tropism

[marc issue robinson]

Quoth Paul Mackin:

> At the beginning of Part 3, "In the Zone," Dorothy has a feeling they're
> not in Kansas anymore. Kansas is the Sunflower (Heliotrope) State. Does
> this announce to us that heliotropism has lost a part of its force. It
> can't be coincidence, can it, that the V-2 launches on London have only
> recently stopped as S's adventures in the Zone begin?
>
> It may be more than just the Rocket.
>
> A whole new dispensation is in effect. Things are not as they were.

Things are certainly not as they were; this is an interesting reading of 
a
quote I'd only ever read as "we are now beyond the pale (of 
civilisation)".

But I picked up a few more tidbits of heliotropism that may take us into
deeper water yet. Last evening I lobbed an open ended heliotrope question 
at
a friend (an Olson scholar), whose jaw dropped. It seems there is a 
mighty
cluster of heliotropisms in Olson: in the Maximus poems (notably section 
III)
and perhaps more pertinently in Olson's reading of Moby Dick ('Call Me
Ishmael'). I don't have this book around, but as far as I understand it, 
the
references are about following or defying the natural order, as indicated
heliotropically, ie by the motion of the sun.

Maybe someone else - with more knowledge of Olson and/or Melville behind 
them - can carry this further?

rgds, marc.

-- 

http://pcecef.dph.aber.ac.uk/~sybil/