TMoP - Chapter Two - The cemetery

[Mark Kohut]

And let's remind ourselves: it was an island for the wealthy originally....so, the Underground, Hell here resonates interestingly---and reminds me of a TRP trope.....[Santa Barbara in AtD, for example].


--- On Thu, 9/25/08, Richard Ryan <richardryannyc at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Richard Ryan <richardryannyc at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: TMoP - Chapter Two - The cemetery
> To: "Bekah" <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>, markekohut at yahoo.com
> Cc: "Pynchon-L" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008, 11:51 AM
> On Yelagin Island and Palace:
> 
> http://www.nevanews.com/index.php?id_article=186&section=2
> 
> There's one historical oddity mentioned that might have
> caught Coetzee's mind's eye:
> 
>  "During
> the time of Catherine II, Yelagin Island was called
> “Melgunov Island”
> and belonged to a Noble man by the name of Melgunov. He was
> famous for
> his hospitality and this same hospitality would later
> become the main
> tradition on the island. After Melgunov, the island
> belonged to Count
> Yelagin, who built a modest house there. The island took
> its name from
> the second owner and has never been renamed. Count Yelagin
> was a
> mysterious personality; he was interested in occultism and
> many masons
> visited his house, among them Count Kaliostro whose half
> – legendary
> figure caused a storm of controversy throughout
> Europe."
> 
>  Not a bad place for a mythical cemetery......  
> 
> 
> 
> --- On Thu, 9/25/08, Mark Kohut
> <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: TMoP - Chapter Two - The cemetery
> To: "Richard Ryan"
> <richardryannyc at yahoo.com>, "Bekah"
> <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> Cc: "Pynchon-L" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008, 11:25 AM
> 
> looks like great looking....no one mentions it......1865
> Handbook at Google
> Books is words from the time.
> 
> 
> --- On Thu, 9/25/08, Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
> 
> > From: Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> > Subject: Re: TMoP - Chapter Two - The cemetery
> > To: "Richard Ryan"
> <richardryannyc at yahoo.com>
> > Cc: "Pynchon-L" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Date: Thursday, September 25, 2008, 10:03 AM
> > I thought I looked and looked and could find no
> evidence of
> > a  
> > cemetery ever having been on Yelagin Island.   Anyone
> else?
> > 
> > Bekah
> > 
> > On Sep 24, 2008, at 7:40 PM, Richard Ryan wrote:
> > 
> > > "They take the little ferryboat to Yelagin
> > Island, which he has not  
> > > visited for years.  But for the two old women in
> > black, they are  
> > > the only passengers.  It is a cold, misty day. 
> As
> > they approach, a  
> > > dog, grey and emaciated, begins to lope up and
> down
> > the jetty,  
> > > whining eagerly.  The ferryman swings a boathook
> at
> > it; it retreats  
> > > to a safe distance.  Isle of dogs, he thinks: are
> > there packs of  
> > > them skulking among the trees, waiting for the
> > mourners to leave  
> > > before they begin their digging?"
> > >
> > > To quote (from memory) William Carlos
> Williams's
> > introduction to  
> > > HOWL: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are going
> through
> > Hell."
> > >
> > > By page seven of TMoP, Coetzee has already
> deployed a
> > set of  
> > > allusions which will continue to resonate
> throughout
> > the book: to  
> > > Dante, to Rilke, and, of course, always and
> > everywhere, to the  
> > > historical double of the book's fictional
> > protagonist, Dostoevsky.
> > >
> > > The visit to the Land of the Dead in the second
> > chapter - invoking  
> > > immediately so many classic visits to the
> Underworld
> > (Orpheus,  
> > > Odysseus, Aeneas, Leopold Bloom....), and
> accompanied
> > by all the  
> > > necessary signs (ferryman, dogs, widows)
> establishes a
> > re-occuring  
> > > pattern in the novel: the Living in search of the
> > Dead.
> > >
> > > I'd suggest we'll find, as the novel
> > progresses, that TMoP is -  
> > > among other things, but perhaps pre-eminently - a
> > mediation on  
> > > Necromancy, on way that the survivors attempt to
> > resurrect the  
> > > people they've lost.
> > >
> > >