BDSL,1- Genetic Therapy for Inherent Vice

[alice wellintown]

right on, thanks.



On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 9:15 AM,  <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:
> Gnossos provides motivation for the theft by claiming that
> St. Stephen is crosseyed- sees two baby jesuses- and that
> this is heretical. This is a comic recapitulation of early
> christologic controveries which would ultimately result in
> establishment of Orthodoxy by those in power. Funny, ironic
> and interesting considering the nature of St. Stephen's
> vision.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, Aug 18, 2010 7:42 am
> Subject: Re: BDSL,1- Genetic Therapy for Inherent Vice
>
>
> The scene in Farina's Been Down So Long, where  Heffalump and Gnossos steal
> the
> Virgin and she loses her Head is very funny, but I love the scene when
> Hef calls the priest who "anoints/heals" the sick and dying Gnossos.
> Actually, it's Miles Davis that cures him. Anyway, like Pynchon,
> Farina demonstrates a keen knowledge of things Catholic. He includes
> jokes, puns, and parodies that only a knowledge of the changes
> instituted after Vatican
> Council II, for example, that the rite was called "extreme unction" or
> last anointing and referred principally to the anointing which took
> place when a believer was close to death, prior to Vat II, but,
> changed as the priest says. The sacrament was restored to the role it
> had in the Apostolic Church.
>
> One of Joseph Campbell's best lectures (see also Mythic Image) deals
> with Virgin Births.
>
> In one story, can't remember, it could be Iroquois, the god avoids the
> birth canal by being delivered through the Virgin Mother's arm pit. Or
> maybe I made this up?
>
> "Whoever drinks from my mouth shall become as I am...."
>
> GGAT 98:28-30
>
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 12:13 AM, Michael Bailey
> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> not that it isn't foggy.  my impressions of BDSL are foggy because I
>> haven't read it in a long while.
>> Foggy is also the impression we're left with at the end of IV.
>>
>> But the shape of what I mean, somewhere in the fog, is that although
>> Gnossos in BDSL is pre-feminist -
>> heck, he's even pre-Vatican-II so at that point all non-Catholics were
>> going to Hell -
>>
>> and therefore neither the character nor the book has, oh, what would
>
> it be
>>
>> called, something like "conspicuous irony concerning the "dominant
>
> male"
> role",
>>
>> or "certain redeeming touches that have become necessary in
>
> portraying a hero"
>>
>> but there's enough sensitivity in the book to make reading it
>
> something like
>>
>> reading V. - "cast my mem'ry back then/sometimes I'm overcome thinkin'
>> about it"
>> (as Van Morrison wrote in "Brown-eyed Girl")
>>
>> and to know that this talent would've incorporated cultural seismic
>> changes in later books that
>> we do not have due to the accident of the author's mortality: and
>> that's the thing
>> that can't be cured and must be endured, and we all are aware of
>> various attempts
>> at cures for that - channeling, seances, belief in the Resurrection...
>> literarily, perhaps, simply reading, rereading, recommending,
>
> speculating on
>>
>> influences ripping through it and out into, well, V. for one...IV for
>> another (that would be an interesting comparison...)
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 6:27 AM,  <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I think it's still pretty foggy. How does "the text" take "that"
>>> into account, in either book? Needs some explaining. The
>>> desire to cure, and the evolving means to to effect a cure, are
>>> also inherited. A- and who's doing the enduring? And when
>>> the latest "cure" becomes available, who gets access?
>>>
>>>
>>>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>> -----------
>>> but isn't it pretty clear the text takes that into account in both
>
> books?
>>>
>>> "what can't be cured, sure, must be endured, sure" (Joyce, in
>
> Portrait,
>>>
>>> right?)
>>>
>>> also that Sailing to Byzantium has something about that too, doesn't
>>> it? (not the famous part, the ragged cloak and so forth, but one of
>>> the lines nobody remembers...)
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 5:55 AM,  <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I think we've been sold a bag of shit regarding Original Sin.
>>>> Unfortunately, alpha male Gnossos, eventually to under-
>>>> go beta decay, is as much a part of the problem as he is
>>>> a cure. I've returned both IV and BDSL to the library- I no
>>>> longer buy books if I can avoid it- so this idea, as
>>>> developed in a comparison of the two, may take a little
>>>> while. More, whenever.
>>>
>>
>