Atdtda27: The Great Game is supposedly ended, 771-773

[grladams at teleport.com]

Nice, Paul,
I'm enjoying the new and old layer cake that presents its slices at times
like this. Right now reading about Boston Men in the Pacific Northwest.
It's about fur traders who came round to the PNW in ships the ocean way,
hundreds of years before the overland route. Then... how would it be then,
eventually to come the other way like Lewis and Clark, and see the traces
of one's Colonial past arising on a horizon not yet approached.. The old
and new has me thinking also on rereading this part on the chance that
Prance somehow has a contrarian Pynchon ancestors voice in him..

Jill

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Paul Nightingale isread at btinternet.com
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:09:04 +0100
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Atdtda27: The Great Game is supposedly ended, 771-773


Eventually, "Kit had begun to understand that this space the Gate had opened
to them was less geographic than to be measured along axes of sorrow and
loss", all of which follows "the Flaming Mountains, redder than the Sangre
de Christos", another reading of the 'new' in terms of the 'old' (or 'here'
as 'there'). In this section, Prance is participant for the first time; he
takes over from Hassan the task of explaining to Kit the significance of the
locale, sketching in the impression of some erstwhile paradise, perhaps even
(according to "[s]ome scholars") Shambhala itself (772). So Prance
represents a colonialism bolstered by (a kind of) academic opinion.
Similarly Prance asserts his authority when the narrative voice generalises
about "[o]ther foreign parties", identifying some groups as Russian rather
than German. This display of expertise follows a reference to Hassan
declining to tell them about his dietary choices. He seems to include Kit
with Prance as "the English"; but then "[goes] about like an Englishman in a
rosegarden" when they come upon the hemp grove. If Hassan is the resident
'local expert', he is in conflict with Prance's hegemonising narrative.

The archaeologists on 772 are "scavengers", able to exploit the terrain at
their will. Subsequently, there is a stampede of kiangs, "likely spooked by
the approach of humans"; and then the wind is described as "alive,
conscious, and not kindly disposed to travelers" (773), just after Hassan
"appear[s] from nowhere" to protect the hemp from Prance the world-be
scavenger. Previously, Prance is described as having "shown up ... like a
sandstorm" (761). Earlier in this section, before Turfan, there are "evening
hailstorms ..." etc and "sandstorms making it all but impossible to breathe
..." etc (771). Here, a natural alliance of wolves and wind. Finally there
is human interaction, courtesy of Hassan the ganga dealer, and a steamer
packed with travellers (773). Hassan-as-trader ends the section in continued
resistance.


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