Fun stuff in M&D

[Daniel Harper]

On Wednesday 14 March 2007 14:30, you wrote:
> OK....fine distinctions there.......I would argue that TRP sees computer
> use--as much other technology---as tending to the anti-human.......
>
>   What did you make of the screaming under the sands in ATD?

I assume you're referring to the bit on p. 432-433?

====BEGIN EXCERPT=======

Like Balaam's ass, it was the camel tonight who first detected something 
amiss, freezing in midstep, violently clenching every muscle in its body, and 
attempting un-camel-like cries it hoped its rider might at least be alarmed 
by the queerness of. 

Presently, from just over the dune to his left, Lindsay heard someone calling 
his name.

"Yes do stop for a moment Lidsay," added a voice from the other side of the 
track, whose source was no more visible.

"We have messages for you," hissed an augmented choir of voices.

"All right now, old scout," Lindsay reassured the camel, "it's quote common 
out here, reported as long ago as Marco Polo, I've personally run into 
something like it in the Far North as well, yes plenty of times." More 
loudly, as of replying to the now-accelerating imopurtunacy, "Simple Rapture 
of the Sands, absence of light, hearing grows sharper, energy reallocated 
across the sensorium--"

"LINDSAY_Linsday_Lindsaylinday..."

The camel looked around at him with a long eye-roll meant, mutatis muntandis, 
to convey skepticism.

"You must leave this track you were told never to stop from, come to us, just 
over this dune--"

"I shall wait here," advised the aeronaut, as primly as the situation 
permitted, "If you will, come to me."

Plenty of _wives_ over here," the voices called, "Don't forget that this is 
the Desert...."

"With its well-known demands upon the mind..."

"...which so often may be resolved as _polygamy_..."

"Heh, heh...."

"_Wives_ in blossom, pan-spectral fields full of _wives_ Lindsay, here is the 
Great Wife-Bazaar of the World-Island...."

And not only the sibilant words but also liquid sounds, kisses, suction, 
mixed in with the unceasing friction of sand in its travels. An obscure local 
insult directed at himself? Or was it the camel they were trying to lure?

====END EXCERPT=======

<ramble mode on>

Of course the camel acts intelligently here, perhaps even more aware of the 
dangers of the situation than Lindsay. Lindsay seems to believe that the 
voices are delusions of his, that they are simply the desert acting upon his 
mind, but the reader is encouraged not to take such a skeptical approach 
towards the text. I'm reminded of the Sandman comic "Soft Places", in which 
those places that have no been explored and mapped exist across time and a 
variety of characters are liable to show up unannounced.

It also seems to have reference to the Sirens in the Odyssey, but regarding 
the desert instead of the ocean. Shambala (sp?) calls out to those seeking 
it, promising rewards?

</ramble off>

>
> Daniel Harper <daniel_harper at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>   On Tuesday 13 March 2007 08:55, you wrote:
> > nice finds...I'm about the only one posting on the Mason & Dixon wiki at
> > the moment so I recommend you post these two bits---or I will!
>
> Done and doner.
>
> > The L.E.D. find illuminates two parts of Pynchon's vision---or one part
> > vision, one mataphor, I think....dogs in his two books with them are
> > human stand-ins for passive middle-class humans....(more)
> >
> > And, as with much other technology, computers are not, in general,
> > positive things....
>
> Yes, there's much in Vineland to be said about computers. But I think it's
> more about the objectification and dehumanization of humans than
> necessarily anti-technology.

-- 
No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.
--Daniel Harper