Chap 17, "the eponymous organ...", read past Spoiler

[Phillip P. Muth]

According to Unknown User:
 
> uh uh, no way. i think you missed the point on this scene. firstly,
> dixon was fucking with mason when he said he heard the 'prayer' (a
> critique of sentimentality and mystical connection). second, i think the
> scene is about madness, sorrow, desire, the absurd, utter loneliness,
> NOT pilgrimage, grail, connection, etc. mason is no "suppliant on his
> knees, waiting revelation" (indeed this is the image tp is sending up).
> he's hovering reluctantly over the void, nearly aware of his folly.
> please reread.
> sorry if i sound snotty.
> ray

Like most critiques (and critics) we want the Either/Or when P
has certainly taught us the value of not simply both/and, but
the more difficult and potentially interesting neither/nor.
The scene is indeed a "send up"
 or at least a sending out.  Even if Dixon is fucking with
Mason, something I think it is difficult to prove (and an
interesting choice of language) that still does not undercut my
main point that a letter always arrives at its destination (the
Lacanian vector of desire).  The revelation is not at hand, any
more than in any of P's work, but it is a moment of
representing the act of seeking revelation, and the moment of
doubt, or is it or isn't it, or whatever way you want to
describe M's wavering before the oracle that is not oracle, 
the ear that launched a thousand ships, or the shill's pipe
dream or all of the above and none.  You and I are both
overstating the case if what we have written pretends to "know"
whether M at this point in the text, says his words only out of
despair, parody or hope against hope.
Do you not see the scene as an allegory of writer/reader, a
parody of religious pilgrimage, a literalization of several
myths and metaphors, etc.  As in Lot 49, it could be, if you
wanted. Why deny, not my truth, but my eyes and ears?  Did I
not see/hear it "correctly", did I not track it, mark my Obs
and compare it with previous charts? Dunno.
Parke Muth

I thank you for telling me to go back to the words themselves.