GRGR(16) jingle bells 347.3 (is also Re: GRGR(16) sleigh 359.3 with M&D echoe Re: GRGR(16) sleigh 359.3 with M&D echoe

[rj]

Doug erroneously provides the reference as 359.3:

> And your heart will grow heavy with age

It is a line from the aqyn's song where he sings of what happens to
those who "would not be born". Doug has joined the fun after all. 

*****

The sequence with the sleigh, however, does contain a favourite conceit
of Mr Pynchon's. Echoes too (and not just architectural) of the crowd
being marshalled along from the railway to the hotel in Pirate's dream
in the opening sequence of the novel, as of the crowd assembled in the
theatre watching the "phantasmagoria" of Pirate's performance at 12.7up,
as well as that theatre which we are all sitting in at the very end of
the novel. Indeed, Gustav regales Säure with another version of this
crowd at 441.18.

I always see these "crowd scenes" as references to the reader; metaphors
for the act of reading, spectating, interpreting things. Cues, if you
like. We each get a bit part in the movie which is *GR*, just as we each
get a bit part in the movie which is life, or history, or what you will.
It is here that the reader will see her or himself reflected. (Wave to
the kids. Mouth "Hi Mom" to the camera.)

What we are watching ourselves watching is the alienation of Eastern
culture by the machinery (and machinations) of Western culture. The
historical lesson which Mr Pynchon draws our attention to here is the
"classic hustle" (346.18) the British pulled on the Chinese in those
Opium Wars (1839-42; 1856-60): the success of "British trade policy back
during the last century."(346.17) Chu Piang is "a monument to all
this."(346.8)

The crowd's aversion to Chu Piang is narrated by a "tour leader" (and
who has that been for all these years I wonder -- Chuckles?) who points
out the features of interest of Chu Piang's addiction as if he were a
caged animal (which he is, as we all are), or a freak at a carnival. His
addiction, which was engineered in the first place by the lumbering
Western juggernaut, ensures his alterity, his Otherness. Such hypocrisy.
The crowd oohs and aahs because, of course, in Western societies such
behaviour is shunned, outlawed. Addicts are social pariahs.

What's wrong with the picture? Mr Pynchon shows us what's wrong with the
picture. He shows us that we are part of the picture too, either eager
dupes, or, willing accomplices. 

But for Chu Piang it's all OK, because he's at peace in his mind and
soul ("sedated") and has the clearest possible vision of the cosmos and
its mysteries from that amazing stuff. (It comes from a harmless plant,
for goodness' sake. It's as intrinsically evil as a cucumber sandwich.)
Tchitchy, you see, by virtue of his apocryphal association with Wimpe,
has seen what Chu Piang sees, too. The oneness of everyone. And so
Tchitchy relates to Chu Piang as other Westerners (and we) cannot. It's
the 'Us' and 'Them' mentality which has gotta go.

We don't need to smoke opium to reach nirvana, however, for Pynchon's
novel provides us with all the visionary insight we need. Nothing
illegal 'bout reading a book nowadays is there? Well, not yet that is.
(And once, not so long ago, books like this *were* banned, or slammed as
"unreadable", "turgid", "overwritten", and in parts "obscene", by people
who knew better. The Pulitzer fiasco, where *GR* was unanimously
recommended for the Prize by the fiction jury but vetoed by the judges,
is reported by Roger B. Henkle in 'Pynchon's Tapestries on the Western
Wall', *Modern Fiction Studies* 17.2, p 219. I doubt that Mr Pynchon
would have accepted that award, anyway. And believe you me, it isn't the
Nobel Prize for Literature which is at stake here foax.)

But you were talking about the sleigh I believe? Well, it is simply a
metaphor for the luxury and comfort which centuries of Western economic
imperialism have managed to achieve for us lucky Westerners at the
expense of those like Chu Piang and his fellows. Full stomach, comfy
chair, soft bed, all mod cons. And we go on our Baedeker-tours as if the
rest of the world was simply our own personal zoo. But the world is a
finite resource, of course. This is fact. So, how is it that we in the
West -- the priveleged classes and cabals at least -- can have so much?
Simple answer to that. We take basic creature comforts away from someone
else. Not too many people want to hear that Q & A, I can tell you now.

And I don't know that it is simply a mathematical fancy at all Doug. I
mean, think about cyberspace, and the limitless possibilities it
affords. It looks just like a box but when you get inside the whole
world is there at the touch of a button. The possibilities are endless.
No wonder They (you listening, Chuckles?) want to Control it too. They
want to stop the *human* connections which the Internet can make
possible, because they know that if the Word gets out, if people
actually start talking to each other and communicating in a normal human
way, well then, their pretty little Towers will all crumble to the
ground. They'd be forced to share. So selfish, innit.

Doug, see 358.30

Thanks to s~Z for the Rumivisions also.

Ref:
> 359.3 "an enormous closed sleigh, big as a ferryboat, bedizened all over
> with Victorian gingerbread--inside are decks and levels for each class of
> passenger, velvet saloons, well-stocked galleys"
> 
> Pynchon returns to this sort of multi-leveled, many-chambered rolling
> architecture in M&D:  "Our Coach is a late invention of the Jesuits, being,
> to speak bluntly, a Conveyance, wherein the inside is quite noticeably
> larger than the outside, though the fact cannot be appreciated until one is
> inside." (M&D 354).
> 
> Any suggestions about what Pynchon is getting at here? Sounds like some
> sort of mathematical puzzle, perhaps.