AtD 146 lines (spoiled)

[Ande]

Ray--thanks for your first comment (single-up as tray tables and 
seatbelts) and this further expansion--I've been sitting on my hands 
since this first was raised weeks ago waiting for the read-through--as a sailor "single up"  esp. 
when followed so quickly by 'prepare to cast off' -- is metaphorically a 
call to 'let go the tethers' to 'leave terra firma' but has nothing to 
do with "rounding up stray lines of thought" or to 'tie-up' anything--it 
is about letting go, a ritualistic call and response heard on docks the 
world over--a beautiful way to start a novel, but not necessarily about 
ending a career (haven't finished the novel, and am open to other 
arguments in that vein, but 'Single up the Lines is about beginnings...  
Some words for narrative lines:  gathering, rounding up, knitting 
together...in maritime language--splicing,  (doesn't Melville have a 
whole chapter on marlin spikes and such, or 
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13510).  ~~~Ande


Ray Easton wrote:

>
> On Thursday, Nov 30, 2006, at 13:10 US/Central, 
> robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:
>
>> What the first line says is "Now single up all lines", a statement
>> devoid of context to the non-nautical or aeronautical.
>> Multiple readings can and will occur, and one of those
>> readings would be that the narrative lines from the
>> author's books would be singled up.
>
>
> But what would it mean to "single up" the narrative lines from the 
> author's books?  There is no expression like this in English, as far 
> as I know, except for the one actually in the book.  And reading this 
> expression as meaning something like "tie things together" seems to me 
> especially odd (Iceland Spar or no!), since the literal meaning is 
> nearly the opposite of this (removing connections, not making them; 
> untying, not tying).
>
> Doesn't reading it this way (and I admit I'm tempted to read it this 
> way myself) have little if anything to do with the text itself, and 
> everything to do with the expectations we bring to the text?
>
>
>