Oops: Offlist

[Dave Monroe]

While I'm still conscious ...

--- Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> Thank you very much. I can't quite figure out what
> the game is here. No really, been here since the
> first go round of M&D and I can't figure it out.
> Just a bunch of noise, that is at least 95% of it.

Well, don't always quite (as in, approximately the
same percentage of the time) follow you, either, but
... but, having NOT been around the first time
through, and having previously only given the novel
the cursory first reading upon publication, I'm
finding myself looking up everything.  I would note, a
pass back through the archives hasn't necessarily been
of much help in many instances, and some of the
initial annotations were understandably tentative at
best, so ...

But I'm not one to take for granted the alleged
"clarity" of (any given use of) language, and what I'm
reading as your "noise" here is what I tend to
consider those ignored (willfully or otherwise)
transverse-to-perpendicular dimensions of language
(contexts, histories, etymologies, allusions,
resonances, misprisions, slippages, what have you)
that might otherwise go unremarked.  Of everything i
posted this time around, I'm actually happiest with
picking up that snowflake/amaryllis/pastoral/vanitas,
singularity/complexity/entropy/death trace.  Whether
or not it was intentional (which is NOT the same as,
whether or not it is "there" [where?]).  I realize I
tend NOT to explicate these connections, but I do so
purposefully.  I post what comes to mind, and await
with eager curiosity whether or not they'll register
in similar, or, at leastt, productive ways for anyone
else ...
 
> Why Dave, you decide to pick on Robert ...

Point was, I precisely decided NOT to pick on him. 
But I wasn't so sure of his intentions (Morris's, of
course, are rather more apparent).  Took his implied
explication of an understandable "mis"reading of me at
face value, apologized for any misgivings (and
attendant misgettings), and let it go.  All I can do
...

> maybe you think of him as the only worthy opponent,
> only one with the time, willing to make the effort,
> don't know.

Try not to think of anyone as an "opponent" here, but
it's been made difficult.  But there's an undeniably
dismissive tone I get here from some ...
 
> But I'm sure glad we have you both even if I  much
> prefer Robert's approach, that is, while the notes
> and extra-textual/inter-textual stuff
> is fascinating and interesting, Robert goes to the
> book we have in common, which at the moment is M&D.

Actually, most recently, the book y'all had in common
was M-D, not M&D, but ... but, again, not one to grant
closure to any text, esp. one so blatantly, not to
mention necessarily intertextual.  Kai posted a while
back Jules Siegel's comment about that Pynchonian
private mythology of sorts, say what you will about
Siegel, but he's right there.  There is an awful lot
to be unpacked in those Pynchonian texts ...

> At what point does all the annotation become a
> distraction for the reading? I don't know.

Point is, it doesn't.  People choose to partcipate, or
not.  Peole choose to discuss the element, passage,
chapter, novel, author, whatever, at hand, or not. 
But what I'm puzzled by is, y'all don't even bicker
AROUND me like you would with anyone else.  Then
again, if I can manage at least to shut down the
nastiness for at least that little while, well, I'd
like to know how I'm doing it, at least.  Would
certainly come in handy ...
 
> I do know that very little discussion of M&D has
> taken place here. 

Au contraire, mon frere.  Unless, of course, you mean
on the part of all those who chose not to discuss M&D,
all of whom I supplied with all sorts of points of
discussion, 

> You note Robert's absence from your party. Not the
> first time. 

I note the conspicuous absence (!) of certain
otherwise loquacious, otherwise seemingly
irrepressibly so, partcipants whenever I host.  Esp.
noteworthy as opposed to whenevr I post from the cheap
seats, rather than the podium ...

> It's easy enough to get him to comment on the duck,

Apparently not ...

> which btw, I think is the least important thing
> going on in these chapters,

Well, now, see, you might have said something about
that, you might still, I don't necessarily disagree or
agree, obviously, I mainly try to say a little
something about anything and everything I can, though
I sure do have an awful lot on that duck, which is why
I thought I might host that chapter.  everything else
just kind of came up ...

> kind of old hat with Pynchon--old V. stuff really,
> if you know how to go about it.

Now THIS is dismissive.  "Old hat," "if you know how
to go about it."  Well, as you might recall, I also
had more than a little something to say about automata
in V., and about rather more than merely (now's THAT
for dismissive?) Vaucanson's duck, but ... but note
also that there are always new particpants here, some
of whom might only even be reading Pynchon for the
first time.  Certainly, many aren't nearly so familiar
with the Pynchon Industry as you are.  I've only
delved into the archives when particularly stumped by
something, and I credit anything I find there (or
elsewhere), so ... so, well, every reading is a new
reading ...

> I know that if I wait till the party has moved
> uptown and we are into the next chapter and I circle
> back, Robert will play a little pin the tail of the
> donkey.

Now perhaps here is part of what nags at me here, how
this list is treated as a sort of private conversation
amongst certain privileged members of a presumed inner
circle, with the rest of us having the "privilege" of
listening in, albeit not necessarily listened to. 
Participation is implicitly discouraged here, and I
regret only that I often have neither the time nor
knowledge to respond to all the very worthwhile
comments and questions which are routinely posted and
routinely dismissed to ignored here ...

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