Help, please

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

David,

I'm glad if my quite terse reading of the passage is in sync
with your interpretation. A thorough, admirable analysis.


Heikki

On Tue, 11 Nov 2008, David Payne wrote:

>
> Note that I prefer Heikki's reading of this passage. I wasn't trying to disagree with Heikki's reading -- more trying to parse out the direct and indirect objects of various phrases in the sentence...> From: dpayne1912 at hotmail.com> To: pynchon-l at waste.org> Subject: RE: Help, please> Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:11:13 +0000> > > That sentence is so screwy that I cannot determine the object of each phrase ... does this seem close to correct?> > * "Cammed each night out of that safe furrow" -- i.e., the old man is cammed out (pushed out by his own energies which are redirected vertically) of that safe furrow (i.e., the straight & narrow path of life) each night?> > * as opposed to (camming requires oppositive forces): "the bulk of this city's waking each sunrise again set virtuously to plowing" -- i.e., most of the people in the city wake up each morning to dutifully plow along the straight and narrow life ("the bulk" have sufficient mass to overcome the counter pressure of the !
 old man, so he is cammed out of the safe furrow)> > * and back to the old man: "what rich soils had he turned, what concentric planets uncovered?" -- i.e., "she" (Oedipa) is wondering what the old man turned up during his evening plowing, which was conducted along a different furrow than the safe furrow that the bulk of the city woke to do? (i.e., what poetic truths have been unearthed by this old man's shadowy, counter-culture living)> > The old man is against the day, so to speak, but one against the bulk is beaten down?> > > Natália Maranca wrote:> >>I'm reading CofL49 and it was a very smooth read > >>so far, but now I'm stuck in this bit. I'm not a > >>native speaker, so be condescendent.> >>It is on p. 102 in my Harper Perennial edition. > >>She is hallucinating all over San Francisco and > >>in the dawn she meets this old man who asks her > >>to drop a letter to his wife under the freeway, in the W.A.S.T.E. box.> >>' "Under the freeway." He waved her on the > >>direc!
 tion she'd been going. "Always one. You'll > >>see it." The ey!
 es close
d. Cammed each night out > >>of that safe furrow the bulk of this city's > >>waking each sunrise again set virtuously to > >>plowing, what rich soils had he turned, what concentric planets uncovered?"> >>This is absolutely incomprehensible to me. I > >>loose the line of thought there and everything > >>he says after doesn't seem to make much sense. > >>Can anyone please explain it to me?> > > > > _________________________________________________________________> Windows Live Hotmail now works up to 70% faster.> http://windowslive.com/Explore/Hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_hotmail_acq_faster_112008
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