meat

[Dave Monroe]

I don't much like citing texts citing other texts
if/when I can help it, but the library I posted from
had seemingly everything by Harlow BUT the one book,
so, thanks for looking that up.  Note that those
ellipses are Grant's, citing Harlow at that point; the
Nicholson and Stevenson paper I haven't read yet, so I
can't vouch for them.  But Grant continues, on his
ownsome ...

"The chain of associations forged by these connected
observations makes for an interesting ambiguity in our
attitude toward Metzger.  His name links him by
analogy to competitors of the Thurn and Taxis
organization, and hence to the Tristero, a fact that
accords well with Watson's thesis, which maintains
that through the Tristero Oedipa comes to the brink of
self-discovery, after being rescued by Metzger from
her 'comfortable and complacent' suburban life (61). 
Metzger, however, is Pierce Inverarity's legal
representative and thus is closely associated with the
main current of American capitalism--the equivalent of
the monopolistic Thurn and Taxis dynasty.  This latter
suggestion has ties to the speculation raised by the
discovery that W.A.S.T.E. stands fo "We Await Silent
Tristero's Empire," and anticipation when the Tristero
itself will take over the monopolistic functions of
the state system (169)." (Grant, Companion, pp. 11-2)

"Watson's thesis" can presumably be found in ...

Watson, Robert N. "Who Bids for Tristero? The
   Conversion of Pynchon's Oedipa Maas."  Southern
   Humanities Review 17 (Winter 1983): 59-75.

But that "knight of deliverance" reminds me ... from
Pierre-Yves Petillon, "A Re-Cognition of Her Errand
into the Wilderness," New Essays on The Crying of Lot
49, Ed. Patrick O'Donnell (New York: Cambridge, 1991),
pp. 127-70 ...

"... the whole concept of the Tristero seems to derive
linguistically from a reference in Eliot's The Waste
Land to 'le Prince d'Aquitaine a tour nobile' (line
430).  This line itself bears a cryptic reference to
Gerard de Nerval's poem 'El Deschidado,' in which most
of the major themes of teh Tristero are sounded (the
exile into a shadowy, marginal world; the former
prince whose 'tower' has been 'abolished'; the 'black
sun of melancholia').  Nerval's poem, in turn, takes
its titles from the motto on the shield of the
mysterious Disinherited Knight who turns up at the
ebginning of Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, and who will
eventually represent both teh Saxons and the Jews
evicted from their estates by Norman chivalry.... 
Gravity's Rainbow will reveal how deeply interested in
such 'esoterica' Pynchon is: there the 'tour abolie'
of Nerval's poem--itself drawing on esoteric
lore--will be seen not only as a symbol of
disinheritnace, but also as the tower in the Tarot
pack, blown down by the Holy Ghost so that voices can
be heard--surely, in retrospect, a theme relevant to
The Crying of Lot 49...." (pp. 144-5)

For Nerval, "El Deschidado," see ...

http://eleves.mines.u-nancy.fr/~grangerf/huma/el%20deschidado.htm

http://cld.multimania.com/poesies_archives_nerval.htm

And here's set of Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe links ...

http://www.angelfire.com/ut/daikon/ivanhoetext.html

But Petillon's essay is a favorite of mine, chock full
o' info on literary/historical contexts for Pynchon's
text(s) ...

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> on 8/10/01 3:55 PM, calbert at hslboxmaster.com at
> calbert at hslboxmaster.com
> wrote:
> 
> "Even in 1622, after the beginning of the Thirty
> Years War, a Special Post and Butcher Regulation
> issued by Duke Johann Friedrich of Wurttemberg shows
> that in remote localities where there was no regular
> mail service the butchers were still in the habit
> of carrying letter bags; AND THAT IN SUCH DISTRICTS
> THEY WERE ALSO EXPECTED TO SUPPLY THE MEANS OF
> CONVEYING TRAVELLERS, WHICH WAS NOW CONSIDERED ONE
> OF THE FUNCTIONS OF THE MAIL SERVICE......"
> > 
> > Harlow, pg.67......
> 
> It connects up with the "knight of deliverance" line
> at the end of Ch 1 also I think, and to the later
> reference to the Pony Express. Excellent detective
> work! Of course, as a "deliverer" Metzger turns out
> to be a bit of a dud for Oedipa as well.

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