AtD 146 lines (spoiled)

[Jasper Fidget]

On Thu, 2006-11-30 at 11:41 -0800, pynchonoid wrote:
> Both/and, not either/or, imho.  Words and sentences 
> carry multiple meanings, and we approach a literary
> text with the expectation that the author will have
> brought into play various levels of meaning, metaphor,
> etc. available in the words he chooses.
> 
> > 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?

When I was an undergrad studying Ulysses I dared to suggest to Mr. Prof
that maybe Bloom's potato was just funny, that it didn't mean anything
else at all.  Mr. Prof glared menacingly and declared, "Nothing in Joyce
is 'just funny'."  I believe much the same is true in Pynchon: nothing
is only what it is or seems to be, although probably not to the same
extent as in Joyce.  Certainly the first line is going to be -- as Mr.
Prof would say -- polyvalent.