Day the Next. p. 317 ff; the Deep Read, AtD(11) June

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Ya Sam:

>Of course the topic of 'departures' has been always important to P. Suffice 
>it to mention the title of  a M&D part: 'Latitudes and Departures' with all 
>its polysemantic potential.

Absolutely. Cf. also this bit from AtD (which ties the notion of departure 
to the first line of the novel - another kind of departure):

"If there is an inevitability to arrival by water, he reflected, as we watch 
the possibilities on shore being progressively narrowed at last to the 
destined quay or slip, there is no doubt a mirror-symmetry about departure, 
a _denial_ of inevitability, an opening out from the point of embarkation, 
beginning the moment all lines are singled up, an unloosening of fate as the 
unknown and perhaps the uncreated begins to make its appearance ahead and 
astern, port and starboard, everywhere an expanding of possibility, even for 
ship's company who may've made this run hundreds of times...." (AtD, 821)

And there's a counterpart to this passage in M&D, describing the reduction 
of possibilities upon arrival:

"The Ship's Landing ran well up into the Town, by way of Dock Creek, so that 
the final Approach was like being reach'd out to, the Wind baffl'd, a slow 
embrace of Brickwork, as the Town came to swallow one by one their Oceanick 
Degrees of freedom,- once as many as a Compass box'd, and now, as they 
single up all lines, as they secure from Sea-Detail, as they come to rest, 
none." (M&D, 258)

Curious thing, though: Haven't we generally agreed that "to single up all 
lines" means "preparing for departure"? In the M&D-quote, Pynchon seems to 
use the phrase in connection with arriving. Anyone?

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