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

[Paul Mackin]

On Jun 20, 2007, at 9:05 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> I'll try to single up my thoughts,so to speak.
> Yes, I--we--did sorta use 'single up all lines' as lining up for  
> departure, literally the words just imply the creation of a linear  
> order BUT
> think about it, that order then breaks up, back into 'chaos' and  
> anarchy when the line breaks up, coming or going.....
>
> TRP calls it a "mirror-symmetry" knowing his own leitmotifs, of  
> course.


The second singling up of lines (M&D) is figurative, where as in AtD  
it is the literal reduction to the bare minimum the number of actual  
mooring lines
required to hold the ship in its docked position.

In the M&D case the reduced "lines" are lines of the compass the ship  
can maintain as its bearing--the degrees of freedom it has to move about
in the water.






>
> Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 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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