AtD Q: any thoughts on Lew Basnight's time at the Hotel Esthonia? Anyone?

[Mark Kohut]

Resonates with me.......

He is presented as 'so observant"....therefore his fantastical adventures are like friction with another reality.....

--- On Tue, 2/23/10, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> Subject: Re: AtD Q: any thoughts on Lew Basnight's time at the Hotel Esthonia? Anyone?
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 8:26 PM
> Yes I was going to say something
> about the final passage with Lew in LA.  He does get
> more grimly real and becomes the lens through which we see
> Deuce's final comeuppance.  Maybe the friction 
> between his hardboiled persona and his fantastical
> encounters is Pynchon's way of getting sparks of fire into
> what could be too ethereal. Is this interaction where
> Pynchon finds grace?
> 
> Basnight is a brilliant character occupying a unique space
> in ATD.  Overall I find Doc Sportello to be more
> grounded, less spooky, probably because of the accessibility
> of his world.
> On Feb 23, 2010, at 6:26 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> 
> > Joseph,
> > 
> > You have a more overarching perspective here than my
> mole-like new close reading....
> > 
> > You may be ENTIRELY right...I cannot give your
> thoughts justice at the moment. I will reflect.
> > 
> > I do want to suggest, IF you are correct about where
> Lew falls in the fantastic/mythic vs. real, do you not think
> he moves more toward the credible fiction or what I would
> also call the 'more real' when he comes back near the end.
> Or, tell us when you get there again.
> > 
> > I too will be listening to it again.
> > 
> > Mark
> > 
> > --- On Tue, 2/23/10, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> wrote:
> > 
> >> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> >> Subject: Re: AtD Q: any thoughts on Lew Basnight's
> time at the Hotel Esthonia? Anyone?
> >> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >> Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 4:07 PM
> >> I am listening to ATD on my ipod
> >> while I finish  a large church window. I am
> well into
> >> the Lew Basnight history . He is currently talking
> with
> >> Renfrew. I feel that His split with his wife
> Troth, who
> >> seems, in her very name to personify marriage, is
> really a
> >> break into fiction. For Lew as for most of us ,
> that
> >> fictional rearrangement can be illuminating,
> therapeutic,
> >> and dangerous. ATD has a layered gradation from
> the real
> >> historical( mining wars,WW1,Chicago world's fair,
> Michelson
> >> Morley, Tesla) through the credible fictional(
> Traverses,
> >> Yashmeen, Vibes, Cyprian)   to the
> >> mythic/fantastic( Chums, Vormance story, time
> travel,
> >> Shambala) . I think Lew Basnight occupies a nether
> world
> >> between the credible fictional and the
> fantastic/mythic. But
> >> he leans toward the fantastic, slightly more at
> home in the
> >> world of the Chums, cyclomite revelations, the
> twits , the
> >> time traveling photography of Merle than in the
> world of
> >> Pinkertons or revolutionary unionists.  The
> Esthonia is
> >> also a step toward the  Big Rock Candy side
> of
> >> socialism though with a Kafkaesque tinge. You
> know, the
> >> funny side of Kafka.
> >> 
> >> The fact that Pynchon also connects Lew's overall
> movement
> >> as a movement toward grace  is puzzling and
> intriguing
> >> to me. Is he mocking the idea of a world at right
> angles ?
> >> the gates of Shambala? Mineral sentience? 
> Alein
> >> invaders?  I rather think not. I think he is
> more
> >> inclined to mock those who think the the world
> fully
> >> explicable along some vector called "reality".
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Feb 23, 2010, at 11:25 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >> 
> >>> pp. 37 ff....to p.41?
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >> 
> >> 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
>