text and context (was Re: Benny's Job (2)

[jbor]

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>From: <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com>

> Very quickly, as I don't have The Crying of Lot 49 at
> hand.  Off the top of my head, based on those
> collarless suits The Paranoids wear, among other, even
> more explicit references, TCOL49 is set post-British
> Invasion America.  Taking The Beatles' first "Ed
> Sullivan Show" appearance (February 9th, 1964) as the
> beachhead for this "invasion," not to mention "common
> wisdom" here, Stateside, that the Fab Four might well
> have filled JFKs spot in the collective American
> heart, TCOL49 is definitely set post-assasination.
> Which, again, is generally taken as so significant in
> US history of the era that "common wisdom" says that
> every American alive at the time and capable of doing
> so remembers where they were when they heard the news.
> That is, pretty damn significant.

Then, allowing that the specific time-frame of the narrative is several
months *after* the assassination mightn't a more pertinent signification of
that "absence" be along the lines of the "how quickly they/we forgot" theme
(cf. Oedipa and her former or recent fondness for Pierce, but current
enervated impatience at being informed of his death and becoming embroiled
with the will and its provenance)?

> Add to that the
> conpiratorial atmosphere of the novel and the
> seemingly improv "assasination" staged therein, well
> ... well, again, allusion.

But if it's set *after* the assassination ... ? (As you say, though,
Hollander's paper doesn't simply offer this as a 1:1 analogy.)

> I have my own reservations
> about, disagreements with, Hollander's Lot 49 paper,
> but, having had them with Hollander himself, well, I
> still think there are many interesting, useful,
> releevant, and compelling observations therein.
> Again, ecumenicism.  I do try to conserve both baby
> and bathwater when I can.  And, rest assured, I feel
> your sorrow, cocodrillo tears or no ...

I of course haven't missed what you were intending by this last poke ...
but, that "crocodile tears" idiom does seem to have particular resonance for
the scene in the current section when, suddenly, unexpectedly, "a gator
turned and attacked", injuring Benny's offsider. (Benny, after blasting its
head off with all five rounds, tellz the corpse: "Baby ... you didn't play
it right. You don't fight back. That's not in the contract." p. 147)


---crocodile tears

a show of hypocritical sorrow; insincere tears

According to ancient belief the cunning crocodile arouses the curiosity of
its unsuspecting victims with pitiful sighs and groans. Once its prey is
within reach of its powerful jaws, the crocodile snaps it up and devours it,
shedding insincere tears of sorrow all the while. Pliny and Seneca both give
rather fanciful accounts of the crocodile's wiles and "crocodile's tears" is
used figuratively to refer to a show of false emotion in both Greek and
Latin. It is not surprising that, before travel and exploration became
commonplace, people were prepared to accept the ancient belief. In 1356 Sir
John Maundeville wrote his _Voiage and Travaile_. This account of things
strange and fantastic mentions "in a certain countree ... cokadrilles",
adding, "Theise Serpentes slen men, and thei eten hem wepynge." Two
centuries later, in 1565, Sir John Hawkins wrote of a voyage he had
undertaken and repeated the information. Small wonder then that Shakespeare
and his audiences were well aware of the creature's supposed deceit:

                 Gloster's show

    Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile
    With sorrow snares relenting passengers
                   (_Henry VI_ Part II 1590)

Not until the 17th C.  did belief in the crocodile's tears wane and the
phrase become purely idiomatic.

    And George did chief mourner. I suppose he blubbered freely;
    he always could blubber freely when a lad. I remember when he used
    to take folks in as a lad, and then laugh at them; that's why they
    called him 'Crocdile' at school.
                                        H. Rider Haggard c. 1900

&c

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The _Henry VI_ line seems particularly pertinent; Benny very much a
"relenting passenger" thus far in the novel.

best