MDMD(4) p. 107 "The Apocrypha of Astrology"& CL49 p82, and more!

[Eric Alan Weinstein]

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Some day--- not now, I know! this list will do a Close Learning of the 
Crying of Lot 49, and then!!! I think many of those who have under-rated 
this small but sparkling gem shall be truly amazed at how much is there to
be relished, pondered, and wondered at. 

     How often does Pynchon return to a few facts from works (dog-)
gone by, to deep their mystery, and p'rhaps to deepen his comedy, too.

     On p 82 of the 183 page 1966 Lippencott edition  we get Oedipa writing
"shall I project a world," in her notebook, reworking the books earlier trope
of  a projector out of focus "which the projectionist had refused to fix," and 
Dribblette's planetarium trope, "...I'm the projector at the planetarium."  

     Oedipa's re-tropeing concerns the idea of constellations---she thinks of 
the Southern Cross, the Whale and the Dragon specifically. Strange 
constellations for a Californian, perhaps.

Oedipa is looking to make her clues (like stars) fit into patterns of meaning 
(like constellations.) Any theory she might put together about 
the Tristero is thus likened to man's projection of earthly forms into 
the night sky, that grand(est?) instance of our pathetic fallacy.  


These same constellations are put in front of us again in Mason and Dixon---
the Whale, the Dragon. The third (or shall we, upon this tiny magical island
say with Prospero, "thrid?") is the Southern Cross, known and useful to our 
astronomers at the Cape. Pynchon in M&D tells us "These signs are the 
Apocrypha of Astrology." (Now with the Dragon especial, for it posses Sirius
from an earthly vantage, might I suggest we take great care, though I for now
defer, and look to a page about Easter Island, and another about the Dogon.) 

******
 Another note. Somewhere in the p 150-160 area of CL49, Dr Emory 
Bortz shows Oedipa "An Account of the Singluar 
Peregrinations of Dr. Diocleation Blobb Among the Italians,
Illuminated with Exemplary Tales (etc).."  Besides reminding us of 
Poe,  it is a book a bit like the Big One before Us:

"full of words ending in e's, s's that looked like f's, capiltalised nouns,
y's where i's should have been." 


Diocleation and his servant  "proclaimed in loud voices that they were British 
Subjects." A bit like Mason, methinks. They are spared while the rest of the
party are massacred. Dr Bortz presumes this is so Blobb will go back to
England  and tell of the force of the Trystero/Tristero (probably to a man
 behind a desk in London) at a time in "England (with) the king 
(about to) lose his head."

 Well, perhaps the Peregrinations was read by, and inspired, the author 
of Count Senzacapo. Its episode with "the three peasant girls,--"
bringing us back to Mason and the Vroom girls in Cape Town, of course.

By the way, Blobb's brother is also named after Augustine, and  is 
a Reverand by trade who writes a book of sermons. Both
their books appear in CL49 next to a copy of Motley's Rise of The
Dutch Republic.  
Eric Alan Weinstein
E.A.Weinstein at qmw.ac.uk