GRGR(6) Discussion Opener

[Kyburz at ASU.Edu]

Einstien's papers (1905?) indicate that he was led to his discoveries by 
considering a kind of frozen energy, and it's even described in terms of 
color.  Judith Chambers argues that these images, at least in V. A NOVEL, 
evoke E.  and notions of relativity, a theme that resonates in Pynchon.  
She has recently published these ideas;  I'll try to get the info from 
her.  Sorry to be so vague;  she explains it so beautifully that I'd 
rather get her to chime in, if she would.

(oh, the mention of color has more to do with V. A NOVEL than anything, 
here).



On Wed, 4 Dec 1996 MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu wrote:

> Regarding two of J. Burgess's comments:
> >
> >2) "Grafitti of ice the sunless day,..."  
> >   
> >   Does this seem like an odd or awkward clause to anyone besides me?
> >
> <snip>
> >
> >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?
> 
> <long snip>
> 
> 
> Not necessarily academics,  all readers maybe.  Though the overt reference to journals 
> definitely evokes aacademics, well, look at us--we become the glacists too, trying to 
> determine how to read, e.g. "grafitti of ice the sunless day."  We're set up for that one 
> pretty neatly, it seems to me.  This is another of a whole set of images of texts, or writing 
> surfaces, that  cluster in this chunk of the novel, all the plays on textual surfaces.  What 
> makes the Ur-surface, i.e. the book in your hand, the page you are reading, different from 
> grafitti of ice?  Is it so diffferent, after all?  And isn't this list a journal for all the glacists 
> here today?
> 
> john m
> 
> 

Bonnie L. Kyburz, Instructor
Department of English			(602) 965-7756 (office)
Arizona State University		kyburz at asu.edu
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