Grasping for V. Group Read; apochier

[Mark Kohut]

Yea......why these words?  

I think splitting the sun means using a mirror to refract its light as in this: 
Split Light Into A Spectrum Experiment - 12:06pm 
Split Light Into A Spectrum. In this experiment we will split light into a spectrum. ... Hold the mirror under water, facing towards the sun. ...
 
BUT, is this true anyone with OED access?  Apochier is not in the OED, writes someone.....then
Why TF did Pynchon use it? Why is not his use IN THE OED? (He has seven other first uses....because
 
no one ever used it again?.......................and for TRP that yo-yo hand IS, as MB writes equal to the hand of God OR
the hand that started the clockwork universe????




----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sat, June 12, 2010 10:29:15 AM
Subject: Re: Grasping for V. Group Read; apochier

Mark Kohut wrote:
> My way of hosting, just fyi: I will risk some reading(s)....Call me out; call me irresponsible; engage, argue with me; call me occasionally right.?
>

so far so good!  and thanks for taking it on!

> The first V shape is actually the title of Chapter 1. With the V-shape ending where the apochier is: point furthest away from the yo-yo hand.
>

> "If you look from the side of at a planet swinging around in its orbit, split the sun with a mirror and imagine a string, it all looks like a yo-yo. The point furthest from the sun is called aphelion. The point furthest away from the yo-yo hand is called, by analogy, apocheir."

this has always puzzled me: split the sun with a mirror?
trying to visualize a big-ass mirror (a big ass-mirror...) through the
middle of the sun

are we talking about a plane, in which the half-sun is embedded at a point,
so that one can talk about an apo-whatever from the plane?

because otherwise a planetary orbit's about the same distance from the
sun at least in terms of not being very close at any point, whereas a yo-yo
spins right up to the hand...

My inclination has always been not to unpack that imagery, but to enjoy
the "apocheir" notion, and also to see this as the first indication of many,
of an implicit sense of there being a Higher Power guiding our ways and means,
in the Pynchon body of work...the guiding hand (which becomes the graphic
"hand with extended Finger" in GR)

and also an imitation of scientific lingo for artistic purpose

and also sort of sets the stage for a
"system-of-describing-the-action-as-if-it-were-movement-
in-a-physical-continuum" which includes the geometric V-images Mark's
describing, but
also the sense of a person approaching or heading away from God,
truth, the controller
of our destiny, at the behest of external powers...
by which my point isn't so much the externality of the powers,
although that's an interesting notion (obviously there's no free will
for novelistic characters, how are we different, and so forth)
but the individual experience of closeness to or distance from God,
truth, others, true love, etc
which is being portrayed - and how

but if everybody, or anybody, else can actually visualize this splitting the sun
with a mirror thing, please reveal a detail or two...

>
> Two reflections: 1) Another of P's novels that begins with an allusion against the sky, maybe? If you do not think this ob works, wait until I do the first line!

sounds interesting

> 2) In one of his letters--to Hollander, I believe---P said something like: Hey, my meaning is all there on the page. ( We know this is true and not true at once
> overall      but taking this on its face, I want to ask how much  V. as end of yo-yo hand resonates as meaning?.....the analogy comes up again in V..... V juts at straight angles from an apocheir.......sharp angles, we come to know from GR and ATD, at least,  aren't positive in TRP's vision. Operative here?

Operative p38 reporting in...all is relatively well, at least for the moment...



-- 
Yippy dippy dippy,
Flippy zippy zippy,
Smippy gdippy gdippy, too!
- Thomas Pynchon ("'Zo Meatman's Gone AWOL")