The Kyrgyz Bakshi

[Terrance]

David Morris wrote:
> 
> Wha do you mean "Wha"?  That article was extremely dismissive of the shaman.
>   Must I go into the details?  That was one big load of crap.
> 
> DM

Obviously I agree, but my wha? was directed, ambiguously,
sorry, at your connection to the Pynchon letter. 

I was in greece for a week and I missed much of the
discussion on this, I deleted most of the week and although
I did read most of Dave Monroe's posts on it and most of
jbor's I guess I'm a bit lost here. I do have a copy of the
letter, I think Seed's notes are a big help, but I don't
think too much weight can be loaded onto it, although I
really appreciate Dave Monroe's posts from both Sanders and
Holton and the suggestion to check out Praz and jbor's
comments on the African history and the like. I must say I
agree with jbor, or at least I think it is more
constructive, smart even, not to try to discover when and if
P may have been disingenuous or modest, but I do think that
there has been quite a lot of inconsistency here in the
applications of speculations pertaining to Pynchon's
intentions. I'm as guilty as the rest on this I'm sure, it
sort of comes with the territory and while I don't think
biographical information and the like as valuable as some, I
still think that facts are stubborn things and Pynchon makes
use of facts (very good stuff from Dave Monroe in this) and
we can also make use of them if we can check them and
confirm them. I think that critics that have gone out on a
limb, Hollander for example, should not be criticized so
much for having done so, as critiqued when the facts prove
them to be in error. 

As Holton demonstrates, critics like  Plater, in his *Grim
Pheonix (an interesting read of Wittgenstein, Baedeker and
Kecule etc)  he argues that colonial history is not
significant to the text are in error, and John Stark argues
that religion has been overemphasized by overzealous critics
obsessed with the study of myth, Mendelson discovers the
sacred and the profane but says that Gnosticism is a but a
footnote in GR, Harold Bloom, who knows quite a lot about
Gnosticism disagrees but doesn't elaborate, and so with
science and drama and opera and law and on and on. On one
of  the reasons I think Eddins is so good is because is not
simply because he addresses the religion in the texts and he
is a scholar ideally suited to do so, but because he
benefits from the scholars that come before him. Moore and
Hume and Hoohman Weisenburger and Hite in particular. So it
goes, and there are errors in Eddins and Hite and Holton
and,  and , so what? 

Miles? Do I hear Miles....Jane? 

Well, it's just that we are all shooting in the dark too
long and our Angel is drunk, so lets try to keep cool and
not get too crazy. Mr. jbor can get me wondering if I've
been smoken crack sometimes, but he's also making sense a
lot so....


> 
> >From: Terrance
> >
> >David Morris wrote:
> > >
> > > Boy was this ever a "tourist's" point of view!  Reminds me of Pynchon's
> > > letter to Hirsch about the attitude of the colonist.
> >
> >Wha?
> _________________________________________________________________
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