"at 6s & 7s"

[RedBug]

I had a chance to check out the two relevant sections after my previous
post, kind of examing the numbers, and they hold up pretty well.

Roger's section (p.124) begins "he had not seen [Jessica] for about a
fortnight [14 days]").  The entire section describes Roger's confusion.
Roger 's section ends with his (the narrator's?) count of seven
Christmases/years of war. Immediately following is the section on Jessica
(p.126) who thinks "She can't remember ever being so confused." Jessica's
section contains  3s, a 30, and her count of six years of war (p.127).
A-and then there's also, in J's section, "the unwholesome obsessions with
who said what to whom in the spring of *1942* [emphasis added] for God's
sake." (p.127) I suppose I don't have to point out that 42 is 7x6. Ahah!!

So Jess and Roger *are* "at sixes and sevens". Just as I thought!

Sorry for any redundancies.

R. Ed ("TW") Bug

On Fri, 24 Jan 1997, Henry M wrote:

> "Now if the six, turned out be nine..." - Jimi Hendrix
> 
> > Date:          Fri, 24 Jan 1997 10:54:16 -0800 (PST)
> > From:          RedBug <redbug at hyperarts.com>
> > Reply-to:      RedBug <redbug at hyperarts.com>
> > To:            pynchon-l at waste.org
> > Subject:       "at 6s & 7s"
> 
> > 
> > Ok, I'm going to go *way* out on a limb now in this my only real
> > contribution to the "seventh Christmas of the War" conundrum (p.126).
> > 
> > As others have mentioned, it's seems so unlikely that TRP would make this
> > kind of mistake in GR. Anacronisms are one thing, but a miss-count ... nah.
> > 
> > I was reading Don Quixote the other night, after the SCOTW thing came up,
> > and came across Sancho saying something about things being "at sixes and
> > sevens." Now why do those two numbers sound so familiar? I thought to
> > myself. The phrase, as most of you probably know, means  to be in a state
> > of confusion. 
> > 
> > I find it interesting that, as in V. with the Benny-Rachel first-meet-twice
> > deal (which is preceded by references to warps in time's fabric and
> > which occurs at the Space-Time Agency), this episode is preceded by a
> > reference to wave mechanics and the collapse of the wave function which is
> > at the heart of the many-worlds theory.  But THAT may be stretching it.
> > 
> > However:
> > 
> > Roger (or the narrator?) counts seven Christmases/years. Immediately
> > following is Jessica's perspective, so full of threes, thirties, and her
> > count of six years of war. 
> > 
> > So, hey, Rog & Jess are "at sixes and sevens", right? I know this may be a
> > stellar example of over-analysing TRP, but I find it much less facile (and
> > much more interesting) than simply attributing it to "mistake" which I find
> > completely unacceptable.
> > 
> > Just a thought.
> > 
> > R. Ed Bug 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> Keep cool, but care. -- TRP
> Moderation in moderation. -- Husky Mariner
> 
> http://www.nicom.com/~gravity
>