M&D 773

[davemarc]

was Re: GOD MODE--potential spoilers--Greg Egan--Walter Kirn
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> From: Keith Brecher <Keith_Brecher at brown.edu>
> 
> >
> I still can't agree with you
> that the so-called humorous parts of M&D are vehicles for some of his
most
> solemn and serious ideas. I would be very interested in your revelation
of
> the solemn and serious ideas behind the Octuple Gloucester. And, while
> you're at it, how about those giant vegetables? Woody Allen did that bit
> better in SLEEPER....

As a way of continuing the discussion, I'll suggest that one Big Idea
behind the Octuple Gloucester has to do with what somebody (I think Henry
Miller) called Memory and Forgettery.  Here's a well-researched book that
portrays the late 18th Century AND the late 20th Century as simultaneously
verrrry familiar AND verrrry strange.  Things like the Octuple Gloucester,
which will be bizarre to most readers but which is based in fact, is a
comedic device for creating that portrait.

The giant veggies may touch on the theme of the New World as a promise or
dream.  Giant veggie mythology didn't originate with Woody Allen or evil
capitalist canners concocting the Jolly Green Giant or Broadway characters
singing that the corn in Oklahoma is "as high as an elephant's eye."  It
goes back a long ways, perhaps back to the days of the Vikings.  Even early
American photography includes trick pix of giant vegetables.   

Ho Ho Ho,

davemarc