a bit more Re: MDDM Ch. 62 Stig

Doug Millison millison at online-journalist.com
Thu Jul 11 18:14:21 CDT 2002


Stig seems to be talking about two groups of visitors:  (1) "the first
Northmen in America" 8 (612.8), those who had the adventures later related
in the Sagas and the Edda; and   (2) a later group of "Europeans" who would
include Columbus and the rest of the explorers who "discovered" the New
World.  Pynchon's ambiguous phrasing makes it possible to read the lines in
at least these two ways.


I wrote:
In Stig's tale, his use of the phrase "own Ancient days" is ambiguous -- it
can be read as a time before visitation by the first Northmen when murder
and slavery already existed and magic was already broken, or as a time long
ago when the first Northmen came and brought murder and slavery and broke
the old Magic.    Likewise, "that the 'new' Continent Europeans found" is
ambiguous -- are those Europeans the Europeans who came to America in the
15th century, or those who came to America in centuries earlier, in the
11th century?



More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list