GRGR(6) - section 8

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

one two three four five six seven all good Children go to
heaven
one two three four five six...chitty bang bang

Sure. Pynchon turns to the Times of London--Weisenburger
identifies the date 23 December 1944. This episode contains
"flashbacks" or what Weisenburger calls "chronologically
unstructured  analepses," six pertaining to our cute meet
couple. GR.P.126 "as this seventh Christmas of the War came
wheeling in..."

The war was over before the seventh Christmas. What's the
matter with this Pynchon guy? Is he so caught up in writing
some of the most beautiful and Fantastic prose in American
fiction since MD that he can't count to six. Melville can't
count either--see his "Confidence Man," which begins on
April fools day. And guess what? This is the third episode
in which Pynchon adds his  mysterious one year to the war.
On the very next page we have, "six years of slander,
ambition and hysteria..."

Does Pynchon provide a clue with *vespers* at the church?
Vespers are the 6th and 7th hour. I think?

What's curious is that Roger and Jessica have matching time
frames and this leads some to claim that Pynchon has a
problem counting. Or is there another explanation? Perhaps
Jill is right on the mark again (btw, I think she has GR's
plot, characters, themes and narrative down cold) when she
complains about GR being a 70s book.

P.S. When we have some slow time, I will be posting some
ideas on TSI and why I see it as Pynchon's most important
early work. I will demonstrate that this short story
indicates the direction that Pynchon will take in V., CL,
GR, VL, and M&D. If you don't think that the characters and
so forth are comparable, well you know what to do--press
delete.

Terrance--listening to Steely Dan's  gold teeth and
wondering, "who are these children..." and thinking how
interesting that Pynchon brings together all these children
and kings (including King Yrjo from his TSI) to the Night's
Mad Carnival at Christmas time.

From: Mother War
To: The Children

Merry Christmas

> Terrance:
> >P.S. Before leaving this chapter we might note
> >the Pynchon's "errors" with time have not been
> >addressed.
>
> Can you be more specific?