IVIV20: Maybe then, 368-369

[Mark Kohut]

Yea, dark...sadly so....with an ironic 'joke' about the alumni associations
and their anniversaries of the 'temporary communes"....more of TRP saying
nostalgia is what you get when you haven't made a change in the society?

And, that bit that maybe the 'fog' will lift and something else this time might be there............

as narrow a possibility as TRP said the epilogue to 1984 was...but as real
as a sliver of light through the crystal palace wreckage, I guess...

--- On Wed, 2/3/10, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> From: kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com>
> Subject: Re: IVIV20: Maybe then, 368-369
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2010, 6:10 PM
> As one of the
> some-who-did-not-like-the-book-as-much-as-many, I thought
> the fog-obscured drive was one of the better (if not the
> best) passages in the book, almost echoing the "Now
> everybody" ending of GR, in its pessimism and sense of
> camaraderie in the face of shared doom.  Does anyone
> see anything hopeful or positive in the ending?  There
> were differences of opinion on whether the endings of
> Vineland and ATD were meant to be upbeat.  I weigh in
> on the dark side, in all cases.
> 
> Laura
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> >Sent: Feb 3, 2010 5:45 PM
> >To: pynchon-l at waste.org,
> Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>
> >Subject: Re: IVIV20: Maybe then, 368-369
> >
> >Hey Foax,
> >
> >We've waned.....jump in on Paul's annotated ending with
> some obs, I cheerlead.  Particularly, what do we all
> think about the ending??
> >
> >I wrote, hypingly, "almost-sublime" about it, but that
> is hype....it is smoothly fine, smoothly sweet, so nicely
> meshed with story and many of P's themes, I think.
> >
> >What do some who did not like the book as much as many
> think just of the ending?
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >--- On Sat, 1/30/10, Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> From: Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com>
> >> Subject: IVIV20: Maybe then, 368-369
> >> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> >> Date: Saturday, January 30, 2010, 11:24 AM
> >> The chapter began with Doc, inspired
> >> by sporting loss, leaving home to seek
> >> company, "tak[ing] his disappointment out on the
> road"
> >> (364). On 366 he asks
> >> Sparky if he can "look in here once in a while".
> >> 
> >> Here, returning home, he thinks of those he might
> know in
> >> the same situation
> >> (368). Up the page, anonymity, "a convoy of
> indeterminate
> >> size", and no way
> >> of knowing anyone. At the start of the twentieth
> century
> >> modernist writers
> >> like Durkheim and Tonnies described the alienation
> inherent
> >> in urban
> >> societies; in the 1960s alienation was inherent in
> the
> >> consumer society
> >> described by Marcuse in One-Dimensional Man. IV
> ends with
> >> the attempt to
> >> reconstruct some kind of community, however ironic
> his
> >> speculations (the
> >> "alumni associations" that return again and again
> to a
> >> meaningful moment).
> >> 
> >> From speculating about an indeterminate future,
> "phones as
> >> standard
> >> equipment in every car ..." etc, Doc wonders about
> what
> >> he'll do here and
> >> now "if he misse[s] the Gordita Beach exit" (368).
> Doc's
> >> reading of
> >> landscape (a nod at documentary realism: "He knew
> that at
> >> Rosecrans ..."
> >> etc) is succeeded by speculation: "Maybe then it
> would stay
> >> this way for
> >> days ..." etc (369). There are alternative endings
> on offer
> >> here, the
> >> fantasy that offers anonymity as a kind of
> liberation
> >> ("across a border
> >> where nobody could tell anymore in the fog who was
> Mexican,
> >> who was Anglo,
> >> who was anybody") set against passivity, not for
> the first
> >> time Doc
> >> "pull[ing] over on the shoulder and wait[ing]".
> The latter
> >> option has cops
> >> and "a restless blonde", the citizen still a PI.
> >> 
> >> 
> >
> >
> >      
> 
>