Horus vs Set, the gator hunt

[Joseph Tracy]

On Aug 20, 2010, at 2:25 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:

> Another Horus link here from Graves's White Goddess:
>
> The Jackal's Address to Isis
>
> Brant Anup's children this:
> to howl with you, Queen Isis,
> Over the scattered limbs of wronged Osiris.
> What harder fate than to be woman?
> She makes and she unmakes her man.
> In Jackal-land it is no secret
> Who tempted red-haired, ass-eared Set
> To such bloody extreme; who most
> Must therefore mourn and fret
> To pacify the unquiet ghost.
> And when Horus your son
> Avenges this divulsion
> Sceptre in fist, sandal on feet,
> We shall return across the sana
>> From loyal Jackal-land
> To gorge five nights and days on ass's meat.
>
>                      -White Goddess,317
>
> I know I can be a little slow in the uptake, but as I read this, it
> seemed pretty clear to me that Stencil is Horus (staying in B-S the
> younger's apt, he imagines B-S the elder wearing a Harmakis-head) as
> much as he is anything else, following the goddess' lead to reassemble
> his father and thus, maybe, avenge (or integrate) him in some way.
  I am not intending to narrow these mythic patterns and characters  
to  exact parallels to the characters and patterns of V. but to get  
at some of the ways Pynchon seems to be using them.  I like what you  
are saying about Stencil as Horus like. Part of my point as I  
developed my observation of parallels was that the sides aren't  
clear, that this  Set vs Horus war takes place on many levels and on  
the deepest level is not a thing to be resolved and won but describes  
what it is to be  conscious and a participant in social/political  
survival strategies.

Both Stencil and Profane have strained relations with  women and the  
feminine, and both need feminine intervention to heal themselves.
>
> Graves's commentary on the beheading myth in Celtic/English lore  
> here goes on:
>
> "A Canaanite version of the same story appears in iconotropic form in
> the patently unhistorical Book of Judith, composed in Maccabean times.
> The Jews seem always to have based their religious anecdotes on an
> existing legend, or icon, never to have written fiction in the modern
> sense.... The Queen ties her royal husband's hair to the bedpost to
> immobilize him, and beheads him with a sword...; an attendant brings
> it to the lover whom she has chosen to be the new king...; after
> mourning to appease the ghost of the old king, the Corn-Tammuz, who
> has died at the barley-harvest..., she purifies herself in running
> water and dresses as a bride...." Etc.
>
> This links notably with Jung's alchemical studies that discuss a
> variety of ways in which the old king is slain and the queen unites
> with the new king. Or, to quote Ian Anderson, "How do you feel when
> the old man's gone / do you want to be him?" Other commentaries in
> this reading have already covered similar ground, and likely tie in to
> all this handily.
>
> On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 6:48 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>  
> wrote:
>> The first visit in V to Egypt focuses on a rivalry for the  
>> affection of
>> Victoria Wren in which Hugh Bongo Shaftsbury appears as Horus the
>> hawk-headed god of Lower Egypt. Horus is the God of Protection, of  
>> the Sky,
>> Of War( don't worry about those predators, those drones, those  
>> mercenaries,
>> those bankers; they are only here for your protection. Horus is  
>> identified
>> with the pharoah and civilization and exists in opposition to  
>> Set . Set
>> (also spelled Seth, Sheth, Sutekh, Setan or Seteh) is an ancient  
>> god, who
>> was originally the god of the desert, storms, darkness, and chaos. In
>> Ancient Greek, the god's name is given as Σήθ (Seth).(Wik) This  
>> is also the
>> name of Adam and Eve's 3rd named son, who is identified with  a  
>> gnostic
>> tradition which has animal human deities.
>>
>> Set is identified with upper Egypt and Horus with lower Egypt but  
>> it seems
>> like a battle between empire and the wilder hunter-gatherers and  
>> pastoral
>> tribes. In one story Horus is badly beaten and appears dead and is  
>> revived
>> by the god of writing; papyrus was abundant in Lower Egypt.  In a  
>> directly
>> relevant Horus myth,  Horus fights with and conquers a crocodile who
>> represents an aspect of Set.
>>
>>  Pynchon appears to this reader to be overlapping images of this  
>> age old
>> battle all through his writing history. Already in V there is a  
>> density to
>> this theme that shows colonialism, conquest and missionary  
>> conversion as
>> much as an inner force as an outward one. It also shows the  
>> difficulty of
>> controlling a myth. The rats see the socialist tendencies of the  
>> gospels,
>> Fairing's doings show the inherent problems of devouring your  
>> "flock",   The
>> rats argue, the alligator turns to face whoever it is:  horus,   
>> Benny, the
>> marines, Ceasar,  the gestapo, the Israel commandoes, the hired  
>> killer.
>> Profane tells the gator he is sorry.
>>
>>  "  "I'm sorry," he told the alligator. He was always saying he  
>> was sorry.
>> It was a schlemihl's stock line. He raised the repeater to his  
>> shoulder,
>> flicked off the safety. "Sorry," he said again. Father Fairing  
>> talked to
>> rats. Profane talked to alligators. He fired. The alligator  
>> jerked, did a
>> backflip, thrashed briefly, was still. Blood began to seep out  
>> amoeba-like
>> to form shifting patterns with the weak glow of the water.  
>> Abruptly, the
>> flashlight went out.  "
>>
>> What is primarily  sacrificed in heroism is the feminine. Boot  
>> camp includes
>> every permutation of degrading mothers and other "pussies". In  
>> these 2
>> chapters Benny's compliance is contrasted with Rachel's challenge to
>> Schoenmaker.
>>
>> Esther says no, meaning yes, Veronica wants to become a nun.  I  
>> myself
>> aspire to be a peasant with my own land, growing my own food, who  
>> is willing
>> to have his head lopped of for the pleasure of saying fuck you to the
>> emperor. Obama, George, Bill, Mr Goldman, if one of your ears is  
>> out there,
>> I just want to say fuck you, fuck your drones, fuck your golf  
>> game , and
>> fuck your fucking dog too.
>
>
>
> -- 
> "liber enim librum aperit."