V-2nd - 2: At the V-Note

[Mark Kohut]

I suggest P's attitude is like Fu's...such pseudo-analysis is an attitude worth 
a bar fight....although, unlike Fu, TRP might just go on listening....
this little bit is akin, yes, to his savaging of 'literary criticism' in various 
places...sometimes not unlike ours?

He might say (but he wouldn't say it, just imply it);;;;experience the art as 
fully as you can....words to 'explain' don't help       

Or, to deserve a savaging myself: As Wittgenstein sez: About which one cannot 
speak, one must remain silent...



----- Original Message ----
From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Fri, July 9, 2010 11:39:45 AM
Subject: V-2nd - 2: At the V-Note

"The usual divisions prevailed: collegians did not dig, and left after an 
average of one and a half sets.  Personnel from other groups, either with a 
night off or taking a long break from somewhere crosstown or uptown, listened 
hard, trying to dig.  "I am still thinking," they would say if you asked.  
People at the bar all looked as if they did dig in the sense of 
understand,approve of, empathize with: but this was probably only because people 
who stand at the bar have, universally, an inscrutable look."

Young Pynchon being biographical, no doubt, and an astute observer.  He wouldn't 
have been one of the collegians who rudely left, mid-set, nor would he have been 
one of the intimidating inscrutables at the bar.  Haven't we all, at some time, 
struggled to fit into at least that second group?  Following this passage is an 
homage to Bird. Young Tom may have struggled to dig as a college kid on weekend 
trips to NYC, but now, writer of V., he either truly digs, or no longer cares.

Near the end of the scene, Sick Crewsman Fu makes a contemptuous gesture towards 
someone who compares McClintic favorably to Bird.  What's Pynchon's attitude 
here?  Is he with Fu in despising anyone who'd denigrate the recently passed 
Bird?  Or is he standing back, Stencil-like, and mocking the pretensions of 
would-be hipster Fu, self-appointed arbiter of jazz?

Laura