SLSL "TSR" frogs

[pynchonoid]

In response to my "reading a chorus of live frogs in 
the midst of blooming nature as symbolizing 'death'
seems a gloomy stretch, even by mid-20th-century
existential standards"...

Dave Meury:
>But frogs are noted for their . . . croaking.

Yeah. I guess I'm just a "the glass is half-full" sort
of guy. I look at Nature and see the cycle of life,
death, transformation, life.  Judging from his works,
Pynchon does, too. Identifying nature as death links
way back to the consciousness/inert matter split, and
provides gives people like Hemingway justification for
big-game hunting, while others look at nature, focus
on the death, turn it into a social darwinian "law of
the jungle" and use it to justify the individual
killings and mass death of War. 

At any rate, Levine and Pynchon both seem to take the
frogs as a symbol of life here.  Levine's "In the
midst of great death" would appear to be a reference
to the death caused by the hurricane, while "In the
midst of _Life_. We are in death." would appear to
refer not only to the magazine but to the frog chorus.
 By capping this speech with "Oh god" whether he means
it this way or not, Levine turns his joke into
something like a prayer.

-Doug






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<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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