Atdtda22: [42.1i] Modern poetry, 607

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Paul Nightingale:
          
          . . . if he is a modernist it's because we 
          reject the conventional modernist/
          postmodernist divide, as indeed some do.

First of all, thank you Paul for such a fine and easily digested exegesis. As 
you rightly pointed out, the element of pastiche---OBA's 'mash-ups', as it 
were---and the non-linear nature of most of his writing displays Pynchon's 
expansion of  the possibilities of fiction. However one chooses to describe 
the innovations of the author's work, revisionist history is the dominant 
feature in nearly all of Pynchon's writing. 

Consider the following:

          George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903, 
          in Motihari, a small town in Bengal near the Nepalese border, 
          and in the middle of a highly productive opium district. His 
          father was there working as an agent for the British Opium 
          Department, not arresting growers, but supervising quality 
          control of their product, in which Britain had long enjoyed a monopoly.'
          '1984' Centennial edition introduction, pg. vii.

[Interestingly, that excerpt is not in this every-so-slightly redacted 
version. Hmmmmmmmmmm. . . .][1]

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_1984.html

The story we have been handed, year after year, is of noble agents of Empire 
protecting ourselves from h--l's scorge. The story Pynchon gives here---
through all his work, really---revises history to include missing or exiled 
stories. The Pynchon Family history is not included in the usual telling of 
'The AmericanStory Inc.' The first heresy arriving in 'America' came in 
with the first Puritian settlers, said heresy provided by William Pynchon. 
Subsequently we find the Pynchon family story being either exiled to the 
farther reaches of history or being written out altogether. The Ampersand 
on the cover of Mason & Dixon points to William Pynchon's heresy: 
Inclusion. If you perform a Google book search with the words 'Pynchon' 
and 'Unitarian' this will come up 

[tinyurled for your smoking pleasure]:

http://tinyurl.com/2y29ya

Now, turn to page 96 of the first book that comes up: 
"History of Congregationalism from about A.D. 250 
to the Present Time: By George Punchard

http://tinyurl.com/2ykyq7

          "The first heretic who tended to Unitarian Doctrine 
          has a statue in Springfield Mass. One of the finest 
          works St. Gaudens has produced. It is the statue of 
          William Pynchon. It was not erected to him as a 
          Unitarian heretic, but as a founder of the town. . . ."

          Springfield was founded in 1636 by William Pynchon, 
          the then assistant treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay 
          Colony. The town was named after the village near 
          Chelmsford, Essex in England where he was born. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield,_Massachusetts

Speaking of Postmodernism as pastiche. . . .

          The episode begins with a school educational film relating 
          how Jedidiah Springfield in 1796 lead a group of 
          Massachusetts settlers into the western US looking for 
          New Sodom, after misunderstanding, positively, the 
          Bible passages on Sodom and Gomorrah (the first case 
          of myth doing some good). 

http://gamegene.org/ehis_simpsonshistory.html
http://tinyurl.com/yt3jt8

Hear the Nightingale's litany of elements of 'Modernism':

          However, more generally, modernism/
          modernist discourse isn't/wasn't 'just' 
          about culture: it included the notion of 
          social change/mass society, social theory 
          (Weber and Simmel coming up soon), the 
          whole field of what is now called social 
          science, social status, the role of the 
          nation state, capital v labour, including 
          rationalisation/time-management, 
          bureaucracy, not to mention colonialism. 
          (All of which perhaps explains why I 
          would prefer 'modernist discourses' or 
          'discourses of modernism'.)

The Meritorious Price of Pynchon's Redemption is the re-insertion
and inclusion of  the Pynchon family history into the larger story of 
'America' and what it means to be 'American'. Any discussion of
the Historical "Pynchon & Company" enterprise needs to include 
discussion of Paul's litany and a deconstruction of its elements
within. All apply to 'Pynchon & Company'. I'm sure the young 
author's imagination was fired up by research into his family's
history. Little nuggets like this, from a New York Times posting 
from April 29, 1931:

          Formation of a committee to represent creditors of 
          Pynchon & Co., another brokerage firm suspended 
          from membership in the Stock Exchange, was 
          announced yesterday by White & Case, consel for 
          the committee. Eugene Leake, president of the 
          Railway & Express Company, is chairman of the 
          committee. Other members are J.D. Tooker, 
          Alexander Banks and Charles W. Migby

http://tinyurl.com/2ks87o

White, Case, Leake, Tooker, Banks & Migby.

Compare to:

          The letter was from the law firm of Warpe, Wist-full, 
          Kubitschek and McMingus, of Los Angeles, and signed 
          by somebody named Metzger

>From the New York Times front-page posting of the 
Fall of the House of Pynchon, April 25, 1931

          The Stock Exchange firm of E. A. Pierce & co. will take over 
          the accounts of Pynchon & Co. for the time being, it is understood.

http://tinyurl.com/2jtq49

Understand?

Now everybody---

1.(Yes I know it's just an edit job or an earlier version---I keed, I keed).

http://tinyurl.com/3bzm8r