Rosebud (was AH & TRP)

[Henry M]

Here, here! (Where, where? There, there!) But don't send me that 
kid's paper. It's wrong! The only emptiness in the search for Rosebud 
is that it is the search for some else's loss.

> Date:          Tue, 14 Jan 1997 17:41:25 -0500
> From:          ckaratnytsky at nypl.org
> Subject:       Rosebud (was AH & TRP)
> To:            pynchon-l at waste.org

>      My buddy Mascaro goes off the deep end:
>      
>      >We do tend to inject, say, Kane's stupid rosebud with heavy symbolic 
>      >significance, but a student of mine just wrote me a nice paper 
>      >showing that rosebud too is a McGuffin. 
>      
>      Now hold on thar, Babalouie.  I was with you when you said that Pynchon 
>      took the McGuffin to a deeper level than Hitchcock etc. etc., but, "stoopid 
>      rosebud?"  C'mon, John, Rosebud's as much a symbol of sweet, sad loss 
>      remembered in repose as the Fire of Paradise.  (Forget about it bein' a 
>      spectacularly audacious tweak by boy-genius Welles on William Randolph 
>      Hearst's showgirl lovin' nose.  C-cunts, anyone?)  The difference between 
>      Rosebud and a MacGuffin is that, if one is successfully able to follow the 
>      quest to its source, the meaning of the symbol *will* become apparent, the 
>      answer *will* be found.  It must be so, because Citizen Kane is, in part, a 
>      cautionary tale (and Rosebud is its leitmotif) that traces Kane's losses 
>      over the years beginning with his separation from his mother.  There's no 
>      argument from me that it's the viewer of the film -- and not the reporter 
>      -- that makes these connections (so, I guess, in that sense, Rosebud *does* 
>      lead to nowhere), but the connections get made, Johnny.  The same is *not* 
>      true of, say, Stencil's quest, or Oedipa's.
>      
>      Send me that kid's paper.  I want to read it.
>      
>      Third post of the day.  Must be those Wheaties.
>      
>      Chris
> 
> 


My mother was of the sky... -- JL
My mother is the war...
Keep cool, but care. -- TRP
Moderation in moderation. -- Husky Mariner
Not having that, which having... :-|

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