GR 'Streets' (death and/or afterlife)

[Terrance]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> >
> > The disclaimer and the fear (the Priest sounds afraid) indicate that at
> > this point in the sermon the priest is preaching THEIR sermon. Doesn't
> > it?
> 
> My inclination is not to try and push logic too far here. The "us"
> "them" and "we systems are fashioned from the material of Pynchonean
> fancy. Best to simply stand as still as possible and let the magical
> language wash over you. In other words, the thing is not going to parse.
> 
> P.


I get you, Paul. That's  excellent advise. The language, the fun of it,
the wonderfully playful narrative here is brilliant.  Logic is probably
not the best tool in the box for this job.  But, I still think that a
little pretzel logic (S~Z has described Pynchon's writing as pretzelized
logic and I kinda like that image) can come in handy when traveling in a
minstrel show. 

The fragment from Thomas is bogus. I think this section is very playful.
And I think it's an ideal episode for academics and Pyn-heads. I mean,
how do I know the fragment is bogus? Well, look at it. Easy enough. 
right?  Look it up. No, no, no, don't look it up. Well, you could look
it up. I think that road to Providence goes to Brown University and I
think one of the layers (circles)  here is an academic one. 

"Who would of thought so many would be here?"

This is a double allusion. Dante/Eliot. Inferno/Wasteland. 

We've seen this before. Ah, but we can't help it. It's coney island
summer time cotton candy carnival away from the blood in my eyes
scribbling maniacally at the the NY public library. 

This is Pynchon all the way. Red herrings and the like, playing on the
bookishness of the reader and blah, blah. Fragments, bogus, silly,
crazy, funny, .... pretzelized .... 

I asked about the delegates (one of whom is debating the "Heresy
Question" with an ad man) because I think that these allusion to outside
texts are mostly playful distractions and I think that we can parse
(within reason, ha, ha!) if we play with Pynchon's text and the language
he uses. There is no indication that the delegate debating is a specific
person (I'm sure it's not Enzian), but the fact that he is in a
rip-roaring argument over "what else but the Heresy Question" provides a
clue. 

What is the Heresy Question? 

Has this something to do with Return? 

Another question: what about "Return" in this novel. Robert's reading of
Enzian's idea about "return" makes sense to me, but his Return by Rocket
is a distortion, corruption, christianized, Europeanized...  return, not
what ancestors believed. 

PS the Rhenish Missionary Society doesn't get a bad rap in GR. Their
Missionary Colonialism in West Africa does.