grgr (34): kreplach

[Dave Monroe]

These particularly strange little episodes have been of particular interest to
me as I've been rereading the book.  They're the ones that stick with me,
precisely because the seem so obtuse.  But I've been thinking about what comes
just after that "kreplach!"

"As some secrets were given to the Gypsies to preserve against centrifugal"--vs.
centripetal, dispersion to the margins vs. collapse to some
Center--"History"--vs. histories (and see the ex-Jesuit Michel de Certeau,
Heterologies, Writing History, The Mystic Fable ...)--"and some to the
Kabbalists, the Templars, the Rosicrucians"--and note the emphasis on
incompleteness here, no one has the Whole Story, (as) if anyone ever could--"so
have this Secret of the Fearful Assembly, and other"--who they?--"found their
ways"--plural, heterogeneous, centripetal "ways" vs. singular, homogeneous,
centrifugal "way"--"inside the weatherless spaces of this or that Ethnic Joke."
(V737-8/B860)

Again, an instance in which Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow plays on stereotypes (if
not, for what purpose[s], at any rate, to what effect[s]?), but this does seem
Significant, in some way(s) or other(s).  Anywhere else one might find one's
way(s) "inside the weatherless"--why so?--"space of this or that Ethnic Joke"?
See, perhaps, that "Polish undertaker in a rowboat" @ V663/B773, another
seemingly obtuse passage involving epistemology, insight (and note all the
inSpiration, all the "lightning" and so forth, in GR), and leading to a little
Something in re: interpretation, reading ...

Paul Mackin wrote:

> On Sun, 27 Aug 2000, Lorentzen / Nicklaus wrote:
>
> > little square, and now i fold it over into a tri---' 'g a a h h h h !'
>  screames
> > the kid, in absolute terror --- 'k r e p l a c h!'" (737)
> >
>
> what seems safe to say is that  there is a phenomenon of  e m e r g e n c e
> ... the qualitative jump, which cannot be traced back to the single qualities
> of the involved elements on their lower level of aggregation ... unintended
> consequences, spin-off effects ... the emergence of horror, the horror of
> emermergence ... but what, the hell, does it mean here?! anyone? ... kfl ...
>

> Emergence is OK. It's another of those critical mass situations with all
> the 1945 implications of the term and idea?

> In other words kreplach could be, among other things, Hiroshima.
>
>                         P.