later on p. 836, AtD..Foreshadows
Mark Kohut
markekohut at yahoo.com
Mon Apr 7 06:17:12 CDT 2008
Pynchon, pp. 836 - 863
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It is the age of spying, of lies and deception,as we have learned and as is shown in earlier sections but Cyprian, whose name links with Orpheus in its root, [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Cyprian_Latewood]and as a Christian saint (says one commentator):
"For Cyprian, however, the problem of schismatics and heretics was much easier to deal with for the very good reason that there was one central authority recognized within most of the Christian world: the undivided Church. That is, anyone outside the Church was, by definition, a heretic.
he is getting "deliverance"................surely a
very interesting word chosen by our Puritan descendant....
[Does anyone but me remember the name Cyprian linked to Venus and the goddess of love thereby?.......]
Cyprian and Danilo will find "deliverance", with a journey outside of trains, etc., as in the last century......into the 'underworld' as Orpheus did?
(underworld = last century)
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836, (after break on page..) "nameless black mountainside'.....unlike most earthly mountains....blackness is being accented by OBA in this section....'blackness at the heart of all color" a few pages back....(what can that mean?, since the color black is not at the heart of ANY color ).....'all converged to black, black unmitigated by candleflame or woodsmoke)......
Notice that 'black mountainside is also nameless", as was the sea earlier.....
Speculations: black is death herein, a common trope, natural death, reinforced by that figure watching Danilo and Cyprian...
'black mountainside' is as nameless, as tacit as all being, like the sea? Black at the heart of all color may be P's metaphor of the notion that Life, all its 'color', only has that color because of our mortality...??? "Nother oft-expressed notion by some thinkers...
in this primal basic world,---back in the last century (as is said in the text--- which would mean early 18th, largely before the industrial revolution, before electiclights, trains, etc.)---death (black) was what life converged to, despite community (candleflame and woodsmoke)...?
It all reminds me of that line about the pampas and basic existence, including basic fear, dread and death [from GR, I think and I paraphrase, I hope close enough] that Monte, I believe, posted to show OBAs unsentimentality/ non-reductiveness about 'natural' life...
836, 'storm from the north'......Pynchon's direction from which BAD comes
'premonitory silence'.....
: giving warning <a premonitory symptom>
pre·mon·i·to·ri·ly adverb
usage dates from 1647......................Amer Heritage
836, C: "Unless you're British"....where it is dreary with rain a lot AND
where the impending bad event is going to occur?.....London, 1944, GR? All in
the foreshadowning, or retroshadowing, that this section, entitled the same
as the whole book, "Against The Day", is full of.
Like a musical movement repeating the melody?
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