GRGR(6) Discussion Opener

[John Burgess]

For what it's worth, my two pennies...


2) "Grafitti of ice the sunless day,..."  
   
   Does this seem like an odd or awkward clause to anyone besides me?

If one inserts a comma between "ice" and "the" it seems fine to me.

P. 73

3) "Ice of varying thickness, wavy, blurred, the legend to be deciphered
   by lords of winter, Glacists of the region, and argued over in their
   journals."  
   
   Is this a dig at scientists, literary theorists or academics in 
   general? (no offense intended to the .edu-foax)  Are we here talking 
   about some kind of hidden meaning, a plaintext, in a cipher of ice?

"Academics in general" is probably right, but lit theorists fit the model 
better than scientists.

4) "Reg Le Froyd" -- anyone care to play with the possible meanings,
   permutations and combinations of this name?

"The Cold King" or "King of the Cold," clearly the leader of the "lords of 
winter" is the reference here.

5) "`Bert,' suggests the constable, trying to remember if it's right hand
   grasps left arm above elbow or left hand grasps...."  
   
   Any significance in naming the Lord of the Sea "Bert"?  What's the 
   arm-elbow-hand stuff?

I assume it's Bert (the constable) trying to recall which arm crosses over 
which in order to strike the pose of the Lord of the Sea.

7) "They all talk of effectiveness, an American heresy...".  
   
   Why is effectiveness an American heresy?

Because some see a fascination with "effectiveness" or "efficiency" as a 
particularly American distortion of life. Rather than enjoying a process for 
its intrinsic pleasures, Americans (stereotypically) want to tweak the system, 
thus finding their enjoyment in making the system the most effective possible.

P. 76

9) "Old Brigadier Pudding can live ... it's gone, another gone, another,
   oh dear...."  

I'd read this to mean Pudding's memories are fading and he feels each one 
blink out of existence.


11) "Who can find his way about this lush maze of initials...?"  
    
    Indeed. Is the narrator here being rather tongue-in-cheeky-self-
    referential?  Isn't GR itself a bit of a maze of initials?

GR is a maze of initials because the world it describes is a maze of initials. 
There's no great self-reference here, IMO, other than simply reporting the 
milieu.

P. 78

13) What is Pudding's "Old Testament style"?

Brimfire and damnation, seems to me....

14) "...where the country bedlamites sat around, scowling, sniffing 
    nitrous oxide, giggling, weeping at an E-major chord modulating to a
    G-sharp minor...".  
    
    Any of you less musically-impaired people care to comment on this?

Musicology isn't really a requirement here.  He's speaking of the emotional 
reaction a bunch of people, drugged out of their heads, feel as a chord 
modulates (i.e., changes) from a major (generally seen as a "happy" or 
"positive" influence) to minor (generally seen as "sad" or "dark"). It's a 
pretty run-of-the-mill device that can be used to great effect, or overused to 
a maudlin effect.

P. 79

15) "Geza Rozsavolgyi, another refugee (and violently anti-soviet, which
    creates a certain strain with ARF)...".  
    
    Presumably ARF is pro-soviet? Why?  Because of the Pavlov connection?

And a generalized, pro-Soviet tendency within British intelligencia of the 
period (I won't go into later periods to avoid needless offence)


19) Anyone have anything to say about the MMPI and how it gives infor-
    mation different from a Rorschach test?  Structure vs. lack thereof.

Crudely, the MMPI has answers that are scored against an fixed list of 
responses. The Rorschach is completely subjective, both on the part of the 
tested and the tester.

P. 82

20) Who is Rosie's "most famous compatriot" and what would make the staff
    "swear they've seen him crawling headfirst down the north facade"?

It's gotta be Dracula.

P. 83

22) Why does Pynchon begin this section by writing in a script form?  
    What purpose/function does it serve?

IMO, it's those drugs acting up again, allowing (forcing?) TRP to modulate his 
writing into a personal riff (or goof).


P. 85

24) Jamf was supposed to have "de-conditioned" Infant Tyrone.  How does
    one go about de-conditioning?  How is a conditioned reflex 
    "extinguished"?  What is this "silent extinction beyond the zero"?

Several ways suggest themselves: a) simply stop the cause-effect cycle; b) 
invert the cycle so that the stimulus produces no reward and a lack of 
stimulus does produce the reward; c) shift the stimulus to something else to 
blur the cause-effect relationship.

The conditioned reflex would be "extinguished" when it no longer produces any 
response. "Beyond the zero" is where it gets verrrry interesting, as we enter 
various paradoxical states. Is it the result of overdoing the extinguishing? 
Maybe.

P. 89

27) Mexico: "...but there's a feeling about that cause-and-effect may 
    have been taken as far as it will go.  That for science to carry on
    at all, it must look for a less narrow, a less...sterile set of
    assumptions."
    
    Are we here referring to the onset of quantum mechanics, a statis-
    tical enterprise?

Personally, I think what Mexico is going on about is a retreat from science in 
general, not a shift to a more arcane version of it. He's looking for the 
"romantic" part of life that can't be described in numbers or potential 
states.


29) "Pointsman has turned now, and...oh, God.  He is smiling [...] it 
    will haunt him [Mexico] as the most evil look he has ever had from
    a human face."  
    
    Then, a few senteces along, Pointsman is referred to as the 
    "AntiMexico".  Is Mexico Christ and Pointsman the AntiChrist?

Seems a little "tiré par les cheveux."  I'd simply leave it as it reads.


P. 91

32) What about the "black latticework [which] is propped up by longer
    slanting braces, lances pointing out to sea"?  There must be some-
    thing here, I just can't visualize it.

I assumed these to be part of the coastal defenses, networks of spikes and 
pipes designed to rip out the bottoms of approaching landing craft, all linked 
with barbed wire.  WWII films and photos are repleat with neat instances.

33) What is a "Zouave"?

Initially an Algerian mercenary employed by the French armies of the 18th-19th 
Centuries. The name was later applied to any military unit that wore fantastic 
and fanciful uniforms (such as certain Federal troops in the American Civil 
War).