Let's think about Byron the Bulb

[grladams at teleport.com]

Wehlp, thanks for the grammatical approach, the pluperfect, the has beens!
I know, or I thought I knew, as a WASP descended from hundreds of years of
Presbyterians m'self, I guess I thought I knew the basics of the now
questionable formula. The only thing I took from it was that the "world is
meant". Goethe had some good words about this I may post under separate
cover. William Pynchon's writing, and later that of his grandchildren, and
reverend children of the Cotton family line (I think--I turned over a lot
of stones doing genealogical work on that tree) would try to patch up that
giant sucking sound in the Neo Calvinist early American New England
churches. Those sort of beliefs dwindled church membership and begged for
fresher more unitarian writings. It's just that William was waay before his
time. Contemparary protestantism lays the emphasis elswehere, such as the
atonement, rather than being a descendent of elect, because as elect
bloodlines peter out, what then?

Let's compare. The dodo gets killed off, so it is _elect_ or is it
_preterite_? The multiple choice answer is b, preterite. But does the dodo
metaphor extend out to all the people who would be killed by the bad
cruisaders, Belgian congo indusrialists, Are preterite the Hereros in
Namibia? The Asian peasants living in China's valley where they plan to
open a huge dam and flood it? Do we say they are the preterite? Maybe what
I'm coming to is that the lifestyle they once enjoyed has passed. 

But do we extend the anxiety to ourselves, as educated better-off (people
who communicate with computers generally are) that _we_ might _be_ those
nasty elect ourselves, staying our hands as we reach for the latest plastic
toy? Calling the elect the Chosen people always makes me think of the Jews,
yknow, complicating matters in that they got gassed, the chosen people got
gassed. Is it bad to say that I hope I am not offending anyone I am just
coming to the table with what I got..  But one could also say the Jews
today enjoy much success as integral members of society, many brilliant and
esteemed in every community, at least where I live no one cares if you have
a minora or a christmas tree. 

I once read a partial book on the Rothschild inheritance, and have read
Merchant of Venice.

I think the elect and preterite thing always confuses me because there's a
radical point where it flips back in on itself, paints itself into a corner
and struggles with words words words -- the tortured writings -- if the
Meritorious Price is any indication of what you gotta do to make sense of
our salvation, is why to me, Zen Buddhism looks better every day. Someone
on this list expressed similar sentiment earlier this year, maybe Laura or
Heidi or someone.
Jill


Original Message:
-----------------
From:  robinlandseadel at comcast.net
Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 11:12:58 +0000
To: pynchon-l at waste.org (P-list)
Subject: RE: Let's think about Byron the Bulb 


             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




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