MMiV The Future of an Allusion

[John Bailey]

I suppose I should mention, before continuing, the well-documented allusion 
of the title, which comes from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. See 
Hollander’s essay on P’s early works for the best summary of this piece and 
the potential meanings which may carry across to the short story. I’m also 
of the opinion that the title is an example of the problems with this 
sophomore kind of allusion – if you don’t get it, you’re left with nothing. 
So, it’s not ‘multivalent’ or ‘dual-coded’ or whatever, it’s just a 
quotation that has little point out of context. In my opinion.

“Grossmann had just finished reading not only Santayana’s The Last Puritan 
but also a considerable amount of T.S. Eliot…” This statement suggests to me 
a certain condescension to those who have just finished reading this stuff, 
as opposed to those who got over them a long time ago (ie Pynchon? Or the 
assumed reader? Or (huh) Siegel?

“unless there was something which linked people like Gaugin and Eliot and 
Grossmann…” which P would be suggesting by linking the names in a sentence? 
I’m not sure what Gaugin is doing in there, though, if we are reading the 
suggestion that some people innately drift into bourgeious mediocrity 
through some fatal disposition. Is Gaugin considered irredeemably 
middle-brow?

“A Klee original was on the wall facing them; two crossed BARs, hunting 
rifles and a few sabres hung around the other walls.” Someone pointed out 
the unlikely nature of the two BARs, which were hardly standard issue. Just 
as unlikely is a Paul Klee original (eg 
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/klee.html) But I suspect that this might 
also be a pretty sophisticated joke: In Walter Benjamin’s “Thesis on the 
Philosophy of History”, Benjamin gives an analysis of Klee’s painting 
‘Angelus Novus’. Another of the important metaphors in this work is of 
course the Turkish automaton which gets a mention in GR. But if you look to 
Benjamin’s other major (ie most famous) work, The Work of Art in the Age of 
Mechanical Reproduction, the idea of the ‘original’ is given a solid 
battering. So, a Paul Klee original is a pretty funny gag to Benjamin fans. 
The later reference to “passages where the light and perspective were 
tricky” (passages italicised) may also be a gesture towards the many 
meanings of that term to Benjamin, both physical and psycho-social.

“Siegel caught the words ‘Zen’, ‘San Francisco,’ and ‘Wittgenstein’” Also 
quite a funny condemnation of the intellectual aspirations of this set. 
Always undercutting those who might be reading his work, isn’t he? The 
“Albertus Magnus” name drop later in the para has the same effect of 
destabilising the reader who looks for esoteric meanings, as if that 
activity in itself is something to be suspicious of.

“…all the families are together, everyone happy, Togetherness in Ojobwa 
land.” Togetherness seems to have been something on Pynchon’s mind as a 
young fella. Anyone ever read the Boeing piece?


…sounded a little like the Catalogue aria from Don Giovanni.” An opera which 
gets more of a run-through in both GR and M&D, and seems favoured by 
Pynchon.

“He had this brooding James Dean quality about him.” Written a few years 
after the actor’s death, this passage might have had an even more sinister 
air to it, adding to the growing picture of possible mental problems for 
Loon. Also interesting since it adds to the list of instances in which 
films, books, celebrities, art etc are used by Siegel to describe his real 
circumstances.

“Good grief, that was it.” Am I right in thinking this phrase was coined by 
Charles Schulz (Charlie Brown)? I’ve heard this but am not sure. If so, it 
was only in 1950 that the Peanuts strip came into being, so it would have 
been quite a contemporary reference.

“Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra” is being played in the kitchen later in 
the party. I love this crowd. Surely Pynchon has a great fondness for this 
sort of group, however idealised or exaggerated they may be, and despite the 
ending we get to soon after.

“Damn the torpedos, Siegel thought. Full speed ahead.” Quote attributed to 
Admiral David G. Farragut leading a Union fleet across Mobile Bay.


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