The first magenta and green? (was

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: jbor at bigpond.com [mailto:jbor at bigpond.com]

> "Whatever had happened had happened, and while the intruders picked 
> themselves up, the crowds of Hindus began a desultory move back into 
> town. The image went back too, and on the following day underwent a 
> private death of its own, when some curtains of magenta and green were 
> lowered in front of the dynastic shrine." (Ch. 36, last para)
> 

In addition to Forster and India, how about the "shrine" rhizome too?
also,
a) red and green - Christmas colors
b) red/green is one of your pairs for phone wiring, in the USA
c) garish reds and greens were common on the early color TVs, seem to remember
d) magenta and the corresponding shade of green (and hot pink and electric blue) are, for some reason, perceived by many as psychedelic

I've noticed a mention of Hopkins in V. (Fausto wrote a monograph on him) so I was tying Squire Haligast into a favored image of the Holy Ghost from Hopkins, inwardly hearing his utterances as rather calm, philosophical and sympathetic, and ringing internal changes on the Idea of the Holy Ghost as conceived by 2 Englishman of a scientific Bent, a Comforter who might well appear as a friendly member of the Gentry to deepen the discussion at times; 

and I was only partly kidding before about leveraging the word "surmised" in Vineland via Keats's Chapman's Homer into a new understanding of the Frenesi/DL dynamic (it still seems like a critical moment to me...)

so...naturally, I'd be among those interested in a skein of references to Forster, and magenta/green, especially in the context of what is and isn't relevant to a deeper understanding...
because I do get what you're saying about that, there are associations, like my 4 above, perhaps, that aren't necessarily that helpful...that there ought to be, and, with a good author, certainly is, a less stochastic method of ferreting meaning out than simply blurting associations; that a critical reading can only be the product of a thinking reader....