V's and Quincunxes: Pynchon, Browne, Galton, etc.

[Dermot Stoney]

The Quincunx by Charles Palliser , pub 1989 - An enormous
Victorian/Dickensian pastiche of over 1100 pages. Worth reading twice. Once
so you can wonder what's going on and again
to wonder why you've wasted so much time on it.

"...hock your imaginary guitar and get a good job. Joe did and he's
a...happy guy now."

DS.

----- Original Message -----
From: David Simpson <dsimpson at condor.depaul.edu>
To: <pynchon-l-digest at waste.org>
Sent: 20 November 2000 22:58
Subject: V's and Quincunxes: Pynchon, Browne, Galton, etc.


> Not sure if this is the proper place to insert some different stuff into
the V. discussion,
> but am seizing the opportunity anyway (using the "scholarly quest" and
"adventure of the mind"
> passage as my textual point of departure.)
>
> For whatever they may be worth, here are a few teasing parallels and
cross-connections between
> Stencil's search for V., the scientific and metaphysical musings served up
in Sir Thomas
> Browne's "The Garden of Cyrus," statistical speculations about randomness
and pattern on the
> part of the British eugenicist Francis Galton, and traditional Gnostic
interpretations of
> cosmic order and design.
>
> Browne was a 17th-century physician, natural philosopher, folklorist,
antiquarian, amateur
> theologian, and universal polymath. His "Gardens of Cyrus" is a fantastic
(in nearly every
> sense of the word) study of the occurrence of "quincuncial" designs in
nature, art, and
> mystical lore. A quincunx (from the Latin word for "five twelfths") is an
arrangement of five
> points to form a double V or X, much like the 5-spot on a playing card or
gaming die, thus:
>
>     *     *
>         *
>     *     *
>
> The legendary gardens of Cyrus the Great (Persian emperor 559-529 BC) were
supposedly laid out
> according to this pattern, and the result, as can be imagined, was a vast
network of
> quincunxes: an elaborate grid or reticule of interconnecting X's and V's.
In his researches
> Browne finds this V-form pattern literally everywhere: in a myriad of
plants, seeds, and
> vegetables; in the bone structures of animals and the veins of minerals;
in art and
> architecture; in physical phenomena; in folklore and alchemy; in ancient
literature and myth;
> in sacred history and the Bible; in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Cabalistical
arcana; indeed, in
> everything from honeycombs and sea-hedgehog eggs to Roman battle
formations and the physical
> laws of optical and sonic reflection.
>
> The sheer volume of instances and examples Browne furnishes is
mind-boggling. So much so that
> as we read his essay, we hardly know (as is also the case with Stencil)
whether he is onto
> something crucial and pervasive or is simply the dupe of his own
overactive ingenuity. (By the
> end of the essay, Browne's search for quincunxes begins to look -- to
modern readers at least
> -- like "an adventure of the mind" indeed, and possibly the product of
some form of godly
> paranoia or full-blown monomania.)
>
> A devout Christian, Browne offers his findings as evidence of a
mathematically meticulous
> Designing God. To him, the omnipresence of the quincunx is simply one more
assurance that the
> Creation is the work of a minutely diligent Maker. In this respect, "The
Garden of Cyrus" is a
> typical, if extreme, contribution to the literature of Natural Theology
and to the tradition
> of cosmic piety (the belief that universal order is the hallmark of a
benevolent Creator). Of
> course, as P-listers are fully aware, such a belief is the exact opposite
of the Gnostic (and
> more Stencilian, and Pynchonian) view.  To the Gnostic eye, such
revelations of order and
> system are more terrifying than edifying for they betoken the presence not
of a divine
> Savior-Creator but of the sinister Archons, the ruler-creators of the
cosmic Jail.
>
> One added note: by an intriguing coincidence, "quincunx" also happens to
be the name that the
> British eugenics pioneer Francis Galton (1822-1911) gave to his device for
depicting the
> "patterns" that emerge within random phenomena. Using a kind of vertical
pin-ball machine
> (designed so that each dropped ball might deflect right or left with equal
probability),
> Galton's contraption provided a graphic demonstation  -- in the form of a
Bell curve -- of the
> deeper-level lawfulness of haphazard events. Shades of Mondaugen's
sferics.
>
> It's not clear whether G's adoption of the name "quincunx" owes anything
at all to Browne. In
> any case, what is probably of greater interest to Pynchon readers is
Galton's self-admiring
> autobiography, "Memories of my Life" (1908). With its earnest
recapitulation of the author's
> eugenic theories and "scientific" views on race and culture, and
especially with its middle
> chapters set in South West Africa (where Galton toured as a sort of
ethologist-adventurer),
> this work qualifies as one of the all-time documents in the history of
British racism and
> imperialism -- as well as a potential source for V.
>
> A pleasant holiday to all.
> --
> "Welcome to 'All About the Media,' where members of the media discuss the
role of the media in
> media coverage of the media." --  New Yorker cartoon, 9/25/00.
> -------
> homepage: http://www.depaul.edu/~dsimpson
>
>
>