VLVL2(8) Thickets of Alders I

[Terrance]

pfm2 wrote:
> 
> Well, since nobody asked, I'd better answer.
> 
> The reason I thought it appropriate to post the Graves
> stuff here is that it's an example of how P jangles mythical/cultural
> nerves so effortlessly. I think we can assume that P has read Graves but even
> if we don't make that assumption, what Graves has written here captures the
> nature of the "nerve jangling" that goes on when such icons are
> introduced.

Seems another  mixture of paint, film (in this case car commercial --how
did a guy who never watched TV happen to see the car commercial that
features a car driving through a painting-film, jumping off the ground
with tires spinning and spitting mud while animals lurk in the near
woods just long enough to divert their attention from their prey-- and
cartoon with sacred gone to profane over sacred. Paint and film mixtures
(Wizard of OZ sets, German Expressionistic technique, Lang ...  are used
in GR) are not a beautiful here as in GR. We know Pynchon read Graves
because Stencil's quest is not only a mock-Adams quest/education/yarn
but a mock-Graves one. It's in the book (page number to be announced). 


> 
> Hence, we can be sure that anyone who has been immersed in the European
> culture
> recognises these things without ever having read Graves. So, immediately
> on
> reading the passage:
> 
> "They had rounded a curve, and under the bright moon the forest fell
> away and the land went sloping down in pastures and then thickets of
> alder"
> 
> we're subsconciously aware of ideas of battle, fighting and bounding.
> 
> pfm