ATDDTA (8) Towers of Silence (209:26)

[Glenn Scheper]

Part 1 of 2
David Morris said,
> But why throw in the comparative religious stuff (which is interesting
> to know, thank you)?  As Robin points out, we are being given a tour
> of Hell, and all scary effects are welcome.  But for Pynchon to
> specifically say that the towers will be "quickly identified by
> sophisticated world travelers," rather than letting the reference
> remain obscure, makes me think he was doing more than just layering on
> cultural/religious historical differences.

Is "sophisticated world travelers" what it means on its face?

If world traveler Pugnax marks the typical reader, then one who
is sophisticated might be taken (askew) as one who has 'sophia',
not conventional technos but eclectic wisdom, a feminine aspect
in man or woman, contrasted with luminous ATON-like domination.

http://www.crystalinks.com/sophia.html

~ Tell the truth, but tell it slant. - Emily Dickinson

The bible is replete with towers: Babel, of what, humanism?;
Tyre, of merchantilism; that one Jesus asked, ~ "do you think
the 15 on which the tower fell were more sinful than the rest?
(No, Repent ye also.); Which of course reminds me of the WTC.

Gardens and cities have towers, I guess to watch for predators.
The watchman in his watchtower is to watch for the sword coming,
to give warning by trumpet (Teruah: a blast & a leading to war).

The chief treasurer (president?) Shebna, which I recall as near
to some noun, Shebha, seven? thus a function, not a proper name,
has hewn out his sepulchre "on high" (WTC; rising above rabble),
but will be tossed as a ball violently into a large country to
die (Iraq?).

Being under a mountain is a frequent metaphor of autofellatio,
and may indicate the penis, that hovering mount and city; Or a
torso may be in view, like tower in Shelley's poem, Ozymandias.

The thighs of such a man, being squeezed tight to his torso,
are like two towers, extending from his bent knees that are
upon the ground, up to his groin sitting upon sky / heaven.
It is not that they are really trunkless, but the trunk is
folded under, indeed until one's visage is upon the ground,
lips pursed reaching for the only command, "Come and...,"
Lifeless due to the poetic death, gaining by recursion the
title, king of kings, cast into the melancholy of metanoia,
alone as all culture's abject, never becoming their object.

"The shadows of the convent-towers" in another autofellator
as convent building metaphor, in Tennyson's St. Agnes' Eve:
  --http://www.bartleby.com/101/703.html

goethe_elegy: A heart that, firm as some embattled tower,
  --http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Goethe/goethe_elegy.htm

_The End Days -- Catholic Prophecy and Doctrine: Hell_
We continued our descent, the road now becoming so frightfully
steep that it was almost impossible to stand erect. And then,
at the bottom of this precipice, at the entrance of a dark valley,
an enormous building loomed into sight, its towering portal, tightly
locked, facing our road. When I finally got to the bottom, I became
smothered by a suffocating heat, while a greasy, green-tinted
smoke lit by flashes of scarlet flames rose from behind those
enormous walls which loomed higher than mountains.
  --http://www.aculink.net/~catholic/jbosco01.htm

TOWER: False ideas, speech, human thoughts, personality, misapprehension, 
fallacy of personal isolation, foundation built on false science
  -- http://www.themysticeye.com/info/tarotsymbols.htm

Part 2 is a KWIC of tower* from my texts cache, lightly culled.

Yours truly,
Glenn Scheper
http://home.earthlink.net/~glenn_scheper/
glenn_scheper + at + earthlink.net
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