GRGR(15) - Correct Reading (was: a thread too long)

[jporter]

Josh:

>[Not to David, but in general:] Is there much discussion of the _language_
>of GR here? I haven't been on the list long but there seems to be a lot
>of focus on higher-level structures in the text, social ramifications,
>psychological analyses of characters, etc. In many ways I read GR as
>some sort of giant mutant poem - a joy, since most poetry doesn't
>do it for me. Admittedly, this level of focus makes reading more difficult
>because the book is so labyrinthine. But IMO it's worthwhile.


I have always thought the novel as a whole recapitulates the
birth/emergence/origin and evolution of.....(your choice)...but language
and its underlying order are as good any. This seems particularly true in
The Zone section in which we now find ourselves, where the political use of
language comes to the surface.

"Lapis lazuli" reminds me of Gilgamesh, the first written epic narrative,
in which the narrator tells us Gilgamesh inscribed his exploits on the the
lapis lazuli stone at the base of the the gate of the first city: Uruk. One
of his exploits was the building of Uruk.

So literature from the get go, it seems, was self-reflective and
self-reflexive. Gilgamesh is the story AND the act of civilization giving
birth to itself.

The Zone is on the verge of developing a syntax. There have been no real
boundaries, but with peace will come order. It will be a palimpsest as
prefigured in the young old laughter of the waif.

The empty circle of Slothrops brain- like a planchette on a Ouija board
through which a message might or might not appear- says alot, but the
"sensitve's fingers, resting lightly but surely on his days..." Katje's?
Pointsmans?  Pynchon's? our own? Or is it something deeper?

jody




The young old laugh of the waif is a palimpsest of sound- newness through
which the ancient can still be heard. She is the inverse of Hepsie- a youth
cloaked in the rags of age- warning M&D of future events. The waif's laugh
warns of the past and it's lingering poison, like the smell of burning
hair, that might infuse the new order as it's forming, or Katje's fingers
on the empty circle of Slothrop's mind, through which we will read the
story of what transpires. Neither we nor Slothrop can escape the chains of
this new syntax. It binds us to him and to Pynchon.

    Through desert sands
       Slouching our way
Towards the center of The Zone.
     Lookout for evil-
     Kill it before it grows

jody