The English Boiled Sweet Litany

[Andrew Dinn]

Greg Montalbano writes:

> On Wed, 24 Jan 1996 09:25:13 -0500 (EST) you said:
> >I hate to tell you this, Andrew, but Count Chocula is REAL. I trust none
> >of TRP's noissome Brit sweeties are. Or a-a-ARE they (gulp!)?
> Yeah, man... I've been wondering about that Disgusting English Candy Drill,
> Andrew;  true or false?

Well, here's a chance to tie together some threads and readvertise my
WWW archive (which now appears to work fine with both Netscape and
Lynx). My first posting on the list (unaccountably omitted from the
1994 pynchon-l archive but now restored in its full splendour and
historic import - see http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~andrew/pynchon-l.html
under the subject `Re: languages') included the following as part of a
discussion of the realism of Pynchon's London.

  Of course there is one scene which is so English, or rather American
  meets Englishness head on, that I cannot believe it came out of any
  guidebook or crib - the boiled sweet litany, of course. Slothrop,
  poor sap, armed only with a Slippery Elm lozenge, is vanquished by
  the combined might of British confectionery. I cannot help roaring
  with laughter every time I read this section. Any Americans out
  there reading this don't forget to buy a quarter of Winter Mixture
  should you ever visit England. The very essence of England boiled
  and condensed into a tiny, brittle drop of horror.

And yes the Meggezone really does still exist and yes it is like being
belted in the head with a Swiss Alp.


Andrew Dinn
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Daran, nachdem die Wasserwogen / Von unsrer Suendflut sich verzogen
Der allerschoenste Regenbogen / Als Gottes Gnadenzeichen steht!