Good Morning from Manhattan Beach, 1970. Chap. 16, the IV of IV

[alice wellintown]

I don't even know how to watch cricket.

 The note I posted on the depth of character analysis necessitated by
the development of the novel and its elements including
characterization, that is, how authors construct characters, as it
strove to reflect the chaotic and violent modern and then postmodern
world, also applies, as I suggested, to the plot line, and we can see
that the two are inextricably tied to that Thai-weed balloon that
Bertrand Russell sets his drugged balloonist in at the start of his
ABC of Relativity (see the post on Eno and Russell and Thai Weed and
talking backward).

Pynchon confuses matters further by cutting thing up and splicing them
together in a kaleidoscopic time tunnel. To add confusion to chaos, he
alludes to scientific theories that were not yet developed at the time
his novel is ostensibly set. The TV allsuion to Darren, where the time
travel paradox theory (Novikov self-consistency principle),  operates,
anachronistically, brings Sahasta in her Country Joe T-shirt into/onto
the Wavo. Nothing has changed? Tropics of Capricorn! Where is that
little buddy, Bigfoot?


At the end of every episode, Tony and Doug always magically reverted
to the same cleaned, pressed clothes: a green turtleneck sweater and a
pair of gray slacks for Tony, and a conservative Norfolk suit for
Doug. Doug never takes off his tie (although he loosens it
occasionally). Doug's clothes were originally meant for the 1912
Titanic, but the suit somehow changes to being contemporary style in
future episodes.

For it became very early evident to us that what was the matter with
the Novel, and the British novel in particular, was that it went
straight forward, whereas in your gradual making acquaintanceship with
your fellows you never do go straight forward. You meet an English
gentleman at your golf club. He is beefy, full of health, the moral of
the boy from an English Public School of the finest type. You
discover, gradually, that he is hopelessly neurasthenic, dishonest in
matters of small change, but unexpectedly self-sacrificing, a dreadful
liar, but a most painfully careful student of lepidoptera and,
finally, from the public prints, a bigamist who was once, under
another name, hammered on the Stock Exchange.... Still, there he is,
the beefy, full-fed fellow, moral of an English Public School product.
To get such a man in fiction you could not begin at his beginning and
work his life chronologically to the end. You must first get him in
with a strong impression, and then work backwards and forwards over
his past.... That theory at least we gradually evolved.

Ford Madox Ford on Conrad.


On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 2:00 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hey, someone has to post whatever to that wiki....Do it.