Leonard on Moody's _The Black Veil_

[Otto]

I must admit that from two NYT-articles and the First chapter I was still
unsure if it's a novel or autobiography.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/books/chapters/0707-1st-moody.html

Had to go to Amazon for a look, but in the end it doesn't matter because I
treat both kinds of texts as being mostly fictitious.

But there are indeed Pynchonian echoes ('shit, money & the word' for
example) in this:
''all the roads were privately owned by paper companies and obscure
governmental agencies who, no doubt, tested biological agents upon the local
wildlife.'' Maine, with its burial mounds of bygone Moodys and its heavy
''legacy of Puritan divination in the person of an overbearing father,''
ought to be his ''fatherland.''

------------------------------------
Even learned a new word; flimflam:

Merriam-Webster's Unabridged:
Main Entry: flimflam or flim-flam
Function: noun, verb
Etymology: probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse 'flim,' 'flîm'
mockery; akin to Norwegian 'flire' to giggle, Swedish (dial.) 'flira'

Noun:
1 a: FREAK, TRIFLE, CONCEIT b: DECEPTION, TRICK; especially: a trick (as in
making change) by which one is swindled
2: TRIFLING, NONSENSE: deceptive humbug

Verb:
Inflected Form:flimflammed; flimflamming; flimflams
to subject to a flimflam: TRICK; 'sometimes': SWINDLE
-----------------------------------------

Hawthorne: The Minister's Black Veil. A Parable
http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/cybereng/shorts/veilhawt.html

Great short-story indeed, especially for a Sunday morning, thanks.
>From this classical short-story page:
http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/cybereng/shorts/

Otto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Millison" <millison at online-journalist.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 06, 2002 8:40 PM
Subject: Leonard on Moody's _The Black Veil_


> ''The Black Veil'' concludes with a positively brilliant howling at white
> privilege, an apostrophe to ''blackness'' that reciprocates Melville's
> incantation on the lovely whiteness of pearls, brides and sharks. ''To be
> an American, to be a citizen of the West, is to be a murderer. Don't kid
> yourself. Cover your face.''
>
>
> ... Pynchonian reverberations (especially recalling  Pynchon's response to
> Hawthorne) at
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/books/review/07LEONART.html


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