covers

[Todd Meigs]

Thanks for the cover info.  Curious though; I have never seen any of di
Chirico's works before -- is there a site where I could find out some more
about him?

Charles F. Albert wrote:
> I apologize if this is laboring the obvious, but I believe C.'s 
> intent is to communicate less a sense of evil than a foreboding 
> anticipation (foreboding good OR bad). This would fit with the
> general visual themes of trains, stations and clocks. 

Then Max Clarke wrote:  
I guess I can agree with that.  But there does seem to be more a hint of
something negative than positive.  Wasn't there a famous di Chirico
painting
called "Mystery and Melancholy of a Street," or am I getting that title
from
something else?  The "melancholy" is always present...perhaps that's a
better term than evil. 

That may go for TRP in general as well.  Sometimes the paranoia is mixed
with, or maybe just a covering for, melancholia.

and I write:
I had a friend who described paranoia as advanced melancholy in the sense
that diving into a paranoia was a method of dealing with depression.  I
can't say I completely agree with him -- believing myself that paranoia is
(for lack of better phrasing; you'll have to forgive my work-deadened mind)
attempts to find or create meaning out of meaninglessness.  Inherent in
this is the unconscious acceptance of the apparent meaninglessness of the
world, which is perhaps  why the two terms seem to be interconnected. 
Although, saying that, isn't there a certain "purring into transcendence"
which marks many of Pynchon's paranoids?  I'm thinking in particular of the
scene late in Gravity's Rainbow where Mexico and Bodine arrive at the fancy
dinner and begin to scream out obscene names for candies/desserts... a
classic.  

Huh.  The various shades of paranoia.  I personally enjoy mine served up
with a healthy dose of wonder. 
-------------------------------
Todd Meigs
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; 
it is easy in solitude to live after our own;
but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd 
keeps with perfect sweetness 
the independence of solitude.--Emerson
-------------------------------