Atdtda29: So the stories go, 818-820

[Mark Kohut]

Among some fine obs, I am taken with the observation, "a refusal of bourgeouis individualism".


--- On Tue, 9/23/08, Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com> wrote:

> From: Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>
> Subject: Atdtda29: So the stories go, 818-820
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 12:06 AM
> To Zengg, and "the narrow passage" that
> "open[s] out": another recycling of
> "the complete ensemble of 'free choices'"
> (811), which here succeeds
> Yashmeen's incomprehension "until it was too late
> to matter" (818). A bit
> further down the first paragraph, sea/currents/wind
> "[are] a composite being
> with intentions of its own"; and none of it has
> anything to do with rail
> timetables.
> 
> Yashmeen is now 'with' Vlado as earlier she was
> 'with' Cyprian. In 57.7 the
> narrative adopted Cyprian's pov; here, Vlado's pov
> is prioritised, although
> he speaks throughout as 'we' rather than as
> 'I'. Hence Yashmeen's
> perceptions ("It was as if the sea ..." etc) are
> subordinate to Vlado's
> certainty: "Vlado said" followed by "she
> speculated". What she sees ("She
> watched the hillside town ..." etc) is accompanied by
> Vlado's authoritative
> voiceover. And then, "... it seemed that all the Uskok
> hinterland"
> (implicitly Yashmeen's ongoing attempt at
> comprehension) segues into a more
> knowing discourse on "[t]he old rivalries between
> Turkey and Austria", which
> in turn gives way to Vlado's account. On 819 he is
> interrupted when Yashmeen
> asserts herself (or rather an alternative perspective:
> "You were pirates
> ..."), but responds with denial. 
> 
> On 817, in Venice: "I was expecting ... abduction up
> into the Velebit". And
> now, Vlado, speaking of Venice: "... whom we wish to
> abduct, to worship, to
> hope in vain someday to be loved by" (819). In this
> section the narrative is
> built on Vlado's self-disclosure, a renunciation of
> bourgeois individualism,
> perhaps; and then there is coy evasion when she recycles
> "stories" of
> cannibalism (a moment she subsequently returns to). Lengthy
> passages of
> history then give way, when "Vlado disappear[s]
> upcountry on one of his
> political errands".
> 
> The narrative now follows the solitary Yashmeen through the
> day as she
> awaits Vlado's return; upon seeing him again she knows
> he will refuse to
> tell her what has happened in the interim (820). Sex
> recalls their first
> meeting on 816, where "just in that instant" he
> emerges from stormy weather;
> on that occasion the "relapse into her old
> Zetamania" (815) has been
> disrupted. Here, she passes time aimlessly, denied formal
> narrative agency,
> even praying for him "on an impulse too hidden from
> her to account for"
> (820). Finally, she inserts herself ("You have eaten
> my heart ...") into the
> history he has previously rehearsed. Earlier he denied the
> authority of her
> sources (or "stories", 819). Here, sex and her
> final outburst fill the
> emptiness produced by his refusal to go on telling stories
> of his own: she
> "knew ... there had been a recreational element in his
> day he would not tell
> her about" (820).