Discussion opener for GRGR(10)

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Foax,

Discussion of GRGR(9) is completed and we move on to discuss GRGR(10)
and read the last section GRGR(11), both of which activities will
continue from today until 21st Feb. GRGR activity seems to have slowed
even though (maybe because) list activity is hotter than ever. Still,
we are near the end of the read as currently planned and this section
and the next have some real neato stuff in it so please stay tuned.

I have the usual selection of questions and comments which I will
present below, slightly less in number than usual but hopefully
fuller. If you have anything you can provide by way of resources,
accompanying text, graphics or video, please submit them to me by
email or other suitable means and I will install them below

    http://www.cee.hw.ac.uk/~andrew/pynchon-group-read.html

Before I provide some opening comments on section 10, I'll remind you
that the next section, section 11, is on pp 167-177 of the
Viking/Penguin edition of GR. The opening words are

    Pumm, Easterling, Dromond, Lamplighter, Spectro [. . .]

and the closing words are

    [. . .] Oh Jess, Jessica. Don't leave me. . . .

Before posting my openers I will remind you that I have produced
myself a little line counter to help pinpoint GRGR references. The
Viking/ Penguin edition has 40 or 41 lines per page (that's logical
lines - i.e. including the blank ones between paragraphs - rather than
actual printed lines). I have a piece of card with 41 ticks down the
side and I am using it to identify the line number for each
citation. So, if I write pp.ll after a reference (where pp and ll are
numbers) that means page pp, line ll.

Now here are the questions for GRGR(10):

 1) `Crab' (154.29) marries a `Piscean' (154.39). Anyone know enough
    astrology to assess the scale of this disaster?

 2) `The best there is to believe in now is a Revolution-in-exile-in-
    residence, a continuity' (155.8) This is teh first of a series of
    comments which appear to say as much about the (immediately)
    post-hippie USA as they do about Weimar. Anyone care to draw
    together all these 60s themes (where's Jeff Baker when you need
    him? - hope he is still writing that book).

 3) `Pornographies . . .' (155.19) Ok, I know we did this subject to
    death (and yes I was peeking ahead when we did it)but note the
    equation Rudy makes with `capitalist expression'. Is Pynchon
    arguing that capitalism will create a market for (and thereby
    debase, or perhaps it would be better to say translate its basis
    to that imaginary standard the bank note - hell, even gold is
    worth money these days rather than money being worth gold) a
    market for any commodity, including love, thought, death etc. Or
    is this Rudi's words, rantings betraying the obsessions of a 1920s
    (1960s?) Marxist.

 4) Leni turns sex with Franz into a masturbatory fantasy `but it became more
    solitary' (156.2) Sorry to harp on about the subject but I'll
    argue that Pynchon believes Leni's fantasies are truly
    pornographic but also that this is the only consequence Pynchon
    thinks worth mentioning (I don't underestimate the horror of
    loneliness).

 5) `. . . since we ran home along the canal, tripped and fell . . .'
    (157.6) `. . . the child he looked at across park pathways, or met
    trudging home . . .' (157.6) I'm totally wowed by these two asides
    into Leni's childhood. Look how rich a physical and mental world
    is suggested with so few words, ye mighty, and despair.

 6) `He missed Attila the Hun roaring in from the East . . .' (159.19)
    So, apparently did the camera-man (sorry to hijack one of your
    best jokes, Don). Which rather puts our boy in Franz's shoes. But
    is there something more than a joke in Leni's subsequent
    description of Franz as the `cause-and-effect man'? How did he
    `connect the fragments'? (159.22) Fragments of which shattered
    vessels? and naturally those film fragments, although they give
    the impression of continuity (the analog[ue]!) are actually
    discrete, quantized (although still not yet digital - have to wait
    for TV to achieve so completely synthetic, so disjointed a view of
    one's external environment). Boy that Qlippoth stuff sure gets
    everywhere.

 7) `Max Schlepzig' (160.13) aka Iain Scuffling.

 8) `Hinterhoefe' (160.15) What exactly is a Hinterhof?

 9) `. . . it's a complex poisoning, both selenium and tellurium
    [. . .] the names of the poisons sober the conversation like a
    mention of cancer . . .' (164.6) If I recall correctly that's moon
    and earth poisoning. (and that Generaldirektor Smaragd is an
    Emerald).

10) `Why do they want rathenau tonight? What did Caesar really whisper
    to his protege as he fell? . . .' (164.25 onwards) What do you
    think of the official as opposed to the paranoid answer? And what
    about Emerald's `contempt of a rare order'? (165.25)

11) Who is `Wimpe' (166.10), `Wimpe the V-mann' (166.18), the IG-mann?

12) `Consider coal and steel . . .' (166.22 onwards) `The real
    movement is nto from death to rebirth. It is from death to death
    transfigured [. . .] polymerisation is not resurrection.' Echoes
    of von Braun's words in the motto, especially that transfigured
    which is nigh on synonymous with `transformation' in von Braun's
    line, Verwandlung in German, the word which forms the root of
    Verwandlungsinhalt, otherwise Entropy. Also echoes of the Golem vs
    the real reassembly of the broken shards, the true resurrection,
    thank you Lord. This is backed up a bit further on by the comment
    from "Rathenau" `What you call life [. . . is] only another
    illusion. A very clever robot' Compare this with the comments in
    the Luddite article about the convergence of AI and robotics.

13) "All talk of cause and effect is secular history, and secular
    history is a diversionary tactic' (167.17) If you want the truth
    then `You must ask two questions. First, what is the real nature
    of synthesis? And then: what is the real nature of control?'
    (167.19) My favourite enigmatic quote from section 1 at least. Any
    answers? Anyone care to explain the questions? (Dan or Eric, for
    example?)


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.