The first magenta and green? (was

[Paul Mackin]

On Jun 14, 2006, at 3:06 AM, mikebailey at speakeasy.net wrote:

>> -----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

This is  because the  combination is very  pleasing and vivid to the  
eye. Perhaps the most pleasing and vivid of the complimentary color  
pairs. i think this has been stated often enough to  have some validity.

But, in Pynchon, it  seems to me more often than not,  it's the color  
SHIFTING that carries  much of the meaning.
"A bit of lime-green in with your rose." When reds begin to show up  
something weird is happening.

You don't have to be an astrophysicist to pick up on the feel here of  
red-shifting--moving away from the center, the center being wherever  
the observer happens to be. In the land of Paranoia,  moving away  
from the center means loss of safety to a position of increasing  
danger, from Them..

Or, equally, the shifting from cold colors--greens--to hot colors--  
reds. The "hot" implying more control, again by Them.
McLuhan comes to mind--his 'cool' as opposed to 'hot' media. In hot  
media the viewer or listener is supplied more information, has more  
to fill in from his own knowledge and imagination  Has less control ,  
fewer degrees of freedom as it were. (have to admit I was often a  
little dubious about what McL considered hot and cool but . . .)

After the introduction of Forester into the discussion, I thought of   
Zadie Smith. Partly because her favorite author is Forester and On  
Beauty is structured after Howard's End.  But what grabbed me was her  
bent for the multicultural therefore "multicoloral."  (io coin a  
word) Don't know if there's anything here but thought I'd mention it.  
What if the contrasting cultures and races  in the book were to  
suggest something a little bit Pynchonesque. Have no idea at this point.









>
> 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....
>
>
>