Let's think about Byron the Bulb

[Bryan Snyder]

Yeah - to understand preterite and how ubiquitous the thought-idea really is
in Western culture... Esp American western culture... You need to bang your
head against the cold hard book of Calvinism... Which sucks, but sometimes
you gotta sleep with the enemy to steal the secret plans!


On 5/10/08 7:12 AM, "robinlandseadel at comcast.net"
<robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

>              Jill:
>              I'm still not sure I get the preterition thing.
>              I can honestly say that's one huge Pynchon
>              element that escapes my grasp or lies just
>              outside of it.. as soon as I think I "get it" I
>              admit I really do not get it.
> 
> Teacher! Teacher! I get it, always did. All you have
> to do to understand "preterite" and "preterition" in
> Pynchon is to understand the "Elect". The Elect is a
> Calvinist concept [dem W.A.S.P.s agin], this seems
> to be a variation on "The Chosen People". The preterite
> are all the rest. Also, preterite is a condition of being in
> or of the past tense. Of course, that condition of being
> in or of the past points to older, perhaps discarded, ways
> of living and belief systems.
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/5cbdeh
> 
> Having spent a fair amount of time in Watts right after
> the "Insurrection" [1965], I find "A Journey Into The Mind
> of Watts" very much to the point, particularly illuminating
> as regards Mason & Dixon and The Crying of Lot 49.
> 
> http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/watts.html
> 
> 
>