More Against the Day

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ya Sam [mailto:takoitov at hotmail.com]
> Subject: Re: More Against the Day
> 
> Against the days, as I see it, are various instances of the expression 
> 'against the day'.
> Speaking about the tite itself, I think it is very peculiar if compared to 
> others. V. is about V. (many duhs in brackets), Mason & Dixon is about those 
> two (on the other hand 18c (and 19c) tradition of calling the novels by the 
> names of the characters), Vineland is about Vineland, Lot 49 at least 
> indicates that there is this lot, Gravity's Rainbow is much trickier, 
> although, on the obvious side, it is about gravity which pulls down the 
> rocket whose contrail (is this the word?) is seen as a rainbow. OK, that 
> much for duhs. But Against the Day, is a way too abstract and vague. Maybe 
> the polysemantic monstrosity of this phrase was the factor that influenced 
> Pynchon's choice?
> 

you raise a good question, Mr Sam. A scrawl worked its way across the bottom of my mind as I read that post, and when I read it, it said
"what if there is a reference to TS Eliot in one of his finicky Brit poems, something about shoring fragments against his ruin?" 
I hope that Mr Pynchon and civilization itself see many more happy years (in both cadences: many more happy years, and many "more happy" years), so that, rather than imago-izing his feeling of the memento of mori himself, which I hope he is not doing in any uncomfortable way, ATD will reveal strategies for shoring fragments, or depict people shoring them...
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