ATDTDA (23): "the gringo population ..." (639.10)

[rich]

there are these little bits of vivid apocalypse scattered throughout
the book--further up the road see the Venice section where Vibe is
underwater viewing a painting called The Sack of Rome (I think) and
its Brueghel, Bosch-like tones, for example

In fact, there are parallels with the explicit city destroyed as noted
in the earlier Fleetwood Vibe section after the Vormance expedition
and of course the beginning of GR

rich

On Nov 26, 2007 8:53 PM, Tim Strzechowski <dedalus204 at comcast.net> wrote:
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> "Away to the west and the Sierra, in grand residences faintly visible
> through the mists that rose from the malarial lowlands, the gringo
> population cringed on top of their breezy river-bluffs, waiting for the
> native uprising they all believed imminent, as they lay supine in their
> bedrooms night after night, beset, in the few hours of sleep they did find,
> by near identical nightmares of desert flight, pitiless skies, faces in
> which not only the irises but the entire surfaces of eyes were black,
> glistening in the sockets, implacable, reflecting columns of flame as wells
> blazed and exploded, nothing ahead but exile, loss, disgrace, no future
> anyplace north of the Rio Bravo, voices invisible out in the oil-reek, from
> out of the diseased canals, accusing, arraigning, promising retribution for
> offenses unremembered. . . ." (p. 639)
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> A fascinating description that seems somewhat out-of-place in the brief
> 638-39 section, mostly due to the foreboding Cormac McCarthy tone
> ("nightmares of desert flight," "pitiless skies," "voices invisible," etc.)
> that arises in contrast to the earlier section of dialogue between Frank,
> Gunther, and Ewball.
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> I use the comparison with McCarthy loosely -- striving mainly to evoke that
> sense of desert desolation and aggressive Nature -- since so much of
> McCarthy's beauty comes from the use of diction and syntax *much* simpler
> than what Pynchon uses here.  For example, I don't hear McCarthy using
> inverted syntax like "voices invisible."
>
> So, what do we make of this paragraph?  Is this description of the "gringo
> population" in its "grand residences," laying fearful of the native uprising
> (which is seemingly all in their perception anyways), an example of social
> commentary ... and, if so, is this something he's addressing toward the time
> period in question, or something applicable today (like his obvious dig at
> Starbucks/Arbuckle's on p. 638)?
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