Atdtda29: Life in the automatic restaurant, 808-810

[Mark Kohut]

Dear Paul,

Thank you for keeping us on Pynchon....I've been away, but I reread with every post you post.

Later,

Mark


--- On Wed, 8/27/08, Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com> wrote:

> From: Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>
> Subject: Atdtda29: Life in the automatic restaurant, 808-810
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Wednesday, August 27, 2008, 4:21 AM
> Cyprian meeting Ratty in Graz, with "an impression of
> sympathy each was
> ready to accept without misgivings", papering over any
> differences that
> might remain (leading to an acknowledgement of the frailty
> of "youthful
> ideas" as the section ends on 810.
> 
> What they have in common, it seems, is suspicion of Theign.
> In the previous
> section anti-Semitism is a means to an end, "a source
> of energy ..." etc
> (807); here, on perhaps a more modest level, Cyprian and
> Theign are united
> in the anti-Theign camp (they are later joined, in his
> absence, by Vlado,
> who "can be counted on", 810). Subsequently:
> "It certainly seems as if both
> the Emperor and the Sultan were recognizing in Russia a
> common enemy" (809,
> the emphasis on "seems as if" indicating his lack
> of authority as a narrator
> when not gossiping about Theign).
> 
> Ratty notes that Cyprian is "itching to be filled
> in" (808). As so often,
> history is expressed as discourse, Ratty noting "the
> despair of
> bureaucrats", among whom he numbers himself: the
> free-for-all in "the
> boardinghouse dining-room of Europe", as he puts it,
> is contrasted to the
> orderly manipulated self-management implied by "an
> automatic restaurant",
> with the limited menu dictating choice as the section ends
> on 810. However,
> the sequence of events he describes/predicts on 809 is
> indeed orderly
> (leading to the irony of "the Blutwurst Special"
> on 810); and what Ratty
> bemoans is his own limited perspective. Speaking of Theign,
> he adds with
> hindsight: "... one keeps telling oneself, by now a
> little wistfully" (808).
> And then, if Ratty doesn't know what Theign is about,
> neither can he
> second-guess Emperor or Sultan: "Neither gentleman
> talks to me ..." etc
> (809). Those bureaucrats left out of the loop are reduced
> to sporting
> wagers: the "even money" on Theign (808) and the
> "European Apocalypse Pools
> ... as to the date of a general mobilization ..." etc
> (809).
> 
> The latter part of the section deals with plotting at a
> personal level, with
> the reintroduction of Theign, and Yashmeen's fate
> juxtaposed to that of
> Europe. Speaking of "this Bosnian pickle" (808)
> Ratty goes back "nearly five
> hundred years" (809). And then, "having the
> lights brought up for a bit, to
> see how fearfully much is in play" (810), the
> transition to Cyprian's likely
> fate ("I would intervene, if I could": again,
> helplessness) signals a brief
> flashback to Cambridge: "Ratty was in full gaze now
> ..." etc, leading to the
> confession of their respective "youthful ideas".