AtD, Opening Line

[elekeik]

Hi, I'm new on the list.

I was just writing to a friend who was reading TP for the first time, and I
got into the subject of AtD's opening, which seems like a perfect one for
Pynchon. Anyway, I think I've only scratched the surface, so I thought it
might be an enjoyable topic for the list.

here are some meanings i think are contained in that first line:

 to single up all lines of meaning is the activity of the paranoid, a famous
ongoing theme of the writer's. in GR he talks abt paranoia (the idea that
everything connects) and anti-paranoia (the sense that NOTHING connects to
ANYTHING ELSE, which, he says, no one can survive for very long)

as we see on pg 10 (in the graf beginning "Beneath the rubbernecking..."),
it is also tied in w/ TP's other (related) major theme: freedom and control
-- the various lines and patterns of divergent lives brought together, made
single (and leading straight to the slaughter)

the ways in which these two lines on lines connect are pretty rich. tho in
general TP always stands for "preterite" freedom as opposed to control in
most of its organized manifestations, he realizes also that complete
freedom, complete dispersal, is a function of another of his old friends,
entropy. and esp in his post GR work, he has taken to singing (often
literally) the praises of community, the communities we choose through love
and relation -- the lines of family we lay down for ourselves

....

andrew
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