The first magenta and green? (was

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 14/06/2006:

> 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....

I think at some point a reader has to take into account the possibility 
that some of the associations he or she has made might not be relevant 
to the text after all. And take responsibility for that.

I think it's the difference between something like the blog which Erik 
posted, where the blogger seems to be writing about his experience of 
reading the novel (the couple of entries I looked at sounded like a 
poor man's version of _If on a winter's night a traveler_) and not the 
novel itself, and another reader who engages with and discusses the 
plot, characters, themes, language etc of said novel. Not knocking 
either, just saying that they're very different ways of responding. 
Obviously for me the latter holds interest where the former doesn't, 
but hitting the delete key isn't such a big deal. "Following a link is 
not compulsory" etc.

I'm not sure where the Forster quote leads us. The sentences are quite 
wonderful in themselves, and Part Three of the novel on which 
essentially they bring down the curtain is extremely funny, as is the 
whole novel. I think that there are broader comparisons to be made 
between Forster and Pynchon, in the way that they both reify through 
their texts cultural and epistemological systems foreign to their own, 
and address specific historical episodes and situations wherein such 
systems come into conflict and clash. I also think that if you assume 
that Pynchon is familiar with Forster, then you also assume that he is 
familiar with the idea of "flat v. round" characters, and with the 
imperative "Only connect". On that basis, I'm less inclined to the 
argument that Pynchon's caricatures, his "cartoon" characters, are 
symptomatic of a stylistic weakness.

Whether or not it's the original source, or holds a key to explaining 
why Pynchon is so obsessed with that colour combination, I don't know. 
But none of the other associations made which I've seen have 
satisfactorily addressed those questions either. Often they haven't 
even attempted to.

"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." (_A Passage to India_, Ch. 
36, last para)

They're actual curtains, by the way, and inside the wooden shrine it's 
a small silver image of Tukaram, a Hindu saint and "the God to be born" 
who is the father of the dynastic cult in Mau. The "private death" 
alludes to the death of the Rajah which happened prior to the holy 
festival, and which has been kept secret.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tukaram

best