The 'Waste' Law

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

               grladams:
               I'd like to know if these postings by our good 
               Robinlandseadel and otherspiling up in the inbox, 
               if all these recent November mining up of google
               book items are recent discoveries by the 
               pynchon-list --or are these rehashings of 
               already known stuff? Am I witnessing a new angle 
               of discovery here??
                                         ---------------------------

               A little of both I think. The 'Waste" law---never saw it before 
               but in retrospect it makes perfect sense--is about a week 
               old for me. Monte Davis notes the connection between 
               surveying [OBA's dad was a surveyor, there were other 
               Pynchon surveyors. Read a hunk of Mason & Dixon if you 
               haven't already, it's a great book] and the 'Traverse' sign 
               of the arm at a right angle. Charles Hollander's great and
               intense essays have a visceral influence on my postings.
               I guess what's different here is a matter of degree, enabled 
               by traversing that web, an option unavailable to previous 
               researchers and writers..

               This is worth looking into: http://tinyurl.com/28cxnc . 
               There's 1299 listings for 'Pynchon" in the the New 
               York Times between 1851 and 1942. I think that 
               the George M. Pynchon attachment to yachts and the 
               incredible amount of newspaper coverage he received 
               for his very expensive, some might even say 'inconvenient'                
               hobby suggest to me both special pleading on his behalf 
               and plenty of monetary clout for TRP's ancestors who into 
               the stocks, or at least into the stock market.

               I suppose what's different about my tack and nearly 
               everybody else's so far is that most people, hypnotized 
               by Pynchon's erudition, assume that the explanation for 
               the principle of organization for his mammoth fictions 
               must necessarily be difficult to comprehend. I say it's 
               simple, the organizational principle at the heart of all 
               of Pynchon's fictions touches on and includes his family 
               history and in particular the History of Pynchon & 
               Company, a very large and influential brokerage house, 
               first in Chicago, later in New York City, that fell to pieces 
               in 1931, accompinied by the simultanious rise of Brothers 
               Brown and Harriman. The BBH connection is central to 
               Gravity's rainbow, and it is one of the blackest chapters of 
               American History. Against the Day is centered on Pynchon 
               & Company, but so was the Crying of Lot 49. Gravity's 
               Rainbow deals with what happened in the wake of the fall 
               of the house of Pynchon, Mason & Dixon touches on 
               issues around property and TRP's strange and interesting 
               early ancestors, and to a certain extent TRP senior, the 
               author's surveying father. That would be Dixon, I believe. 
               But the specifics are not as important [right now, for me---
               check back later, will you?] as the gestalt. I don't know 
               exactly how all this will tie into V., other than knowning that 
               there's plenty of overlap with the time period of Against the 
               Day, so Pynchon & Company would probably central to that 
               novel as well. So much of what has confused people about 
               Pynchon's writing boils down to family history. And though 
               Charles Holander also has written on the subject, I really 
               want to see the subject opened up properly as it contains 
               one of the most important American History Lessons I 
               have ever encountered.

Original Message:
-----------------
From:  robinlandseadel at comcast.net
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:00:02 +0000
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: The 'Waste' Law


The most obvious meaning for "The Crying of Lot 49" 
is the auctioning of property. Of course, under dust
 bowl circumstances. . . .

          Section 49. Who may commit Waste.

          Waste can only be committed by a person rightfully in 
          possetion of the property.. Under the early common 
          law only tenants of legal as distinguished from tenants 
          of conventional estates, were liable for waste. But the 
          common law was changed by the statute of Marlbridge. . . .

          . . . .Formerly in England, co-temant or a tenant in 
          common could not be held guilty of waste, but this 
          statute of Westminster II. In the United States 
          co-tenants are liable for waste, either by statute, 
          or independently of statutes.

Pynchon Vs. Stearns is mentioned on page 92 and 95, in the footnotes.

http://tinyurl.com/2gb8aa