a bit more Re: MDDM Ch. 62 Stig

[Doug Millison]

(I hit the send button too soon awhile ago)

Stig seems to be talking about two groups of visitors:  (1) "the first
Northmen in America", those who had the adventures later related in the
Sagas and the Edda; and   (2) a later group of "Europeans" (612.11),
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?