V-2 - Chapter 9 - Sarah's Story

[Robin Landseadel]

	Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son”
	Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on”
	God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?”
	God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
	The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
	Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
	God says, “Out on Highway 61”

This calamity will unfold slowly. One suspects there is an older tale  
here, a myth that cannot die . . .

Sarah or Sara  is an old Hebrew name, the wife and half-sister of  
Abraham, the mother of Isaac. She's the sister of Lot, so she already  
had some acquaintance with pain and woe. According to Rabbinic texts,  
she was the only Woman who to whom G-d would speak directly -- all  
other seeresses spoke to G-d's representatives, the Angels, those  
creatures that we get to tickle if we're really, really lucky. G-d  
doesn't really want to talk with us anyway lately, but it's nobody's  
fault but his own, so he just sits there and mopes.  Sarah's beauty  
had a "special light" that her captors in Egypt could not help but be  
witness to. William Pynchon's "The Meritorious Price of Our  
Redemption" address the issue of obedience to G-d as the Christ's  
highest virtue, Sarah's story/myth is tied to this issue of "The  
Meritorious Price of Our Redemption" as well:

	Legends connect Sarah's death with the attempted sacrifice
	of Isaac, there being two versions of the story. According to
	one, Samael came to her and said: "Your old husband
	seized the boy and sacrificed him. The boy wailed and
	wept; but he could not escape from his father." Sarah began
	to cry bitterly, and ultimately died of her grief. According to
	the other legend, Satan, disguised as an old man, came to
	Sarah and told her that Isaac had been sacrificed. She,
	believing it to be true, cried bitterly, but soon comforted
	herself with the thought that the sacrifice had been offered
	at the command of God. She started from Beer-sheba to
	Hebron, asking everyone she met if he knew in which
	direction Abraham had gone. Then Satan came again in
	human shape and told her that it was not true that Isaac had
	been sacrificed, but that he was living and would soon
	return with his father. Sarah, on hearing this, died of joy at
	Hebron. Abraham and Isaac returned to their home at Beer-
	sheba, and, not finding Sarah there, went to Hebron, where
	they discovered her dead. During Sarah's lifetime her house 	
	was always hospitably open, the dough was miraculously
	increased, a light burned from Saturday evening to
	Saturday evening, and a pillar of cloud rested upon the
	entrance to her tent. . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah

But these are just myths, nothing like facts and figures to blow the  
cobwebs off of old nightmares.

	"Bravo for '04 again;
	I'm a Deutschesudwestafrikaner in love ... "

The scene painted might as well be Highway 61:

	Just as its own loose sand was licked away by the cold
	tongue of a current from the Antarctic south, that coast
	began to devour time the moment you arrived. It offered life
	nothing: its soil was arid; salt-bearing winds, chilled by the
	great Benguela, swept in off the sea to blight anything that
	tried to grow. There was constant battle between the fog,
	which wanted to freeze your marrow, and the sun; which,
	once having burned off the fog, sought you. Over
	Swakopmund the sun often seemed to fill the entire sky, so
	diffracted was it by the sea fog. A luminous gray tending to
	yellow, that hurt the eyes. You learned soon enough to wear
	tinted glasses for the sky. If you stayed long enough you
	came to feel it was almost an affront for humans to be living
	there at all. The sky was too large, the coastal settlements
	under it too mean. The harbor at Swakopmund was slowly,
	continuously filling with sand, men were felled mysteriously
	by the afternoon's sun, horses went mad and were lost in
	the tenacious ooze down along the beaches. It was a brute
	coast, and survival for white and black less a matter of 	
	choice than anywhere else in the Territory.

	V., 282/283 HPMC

	Cinderella, she seems so easy
	“It takes one to know one,” she smiles
	And puts her hands in her back pockets
	Bette Davis style
	And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning
	“You Belong to Me I Believe”
	And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place my friend
	You better leave”
	And the only sound that’s left
	After the ambulances go
	Is Cinderella sweeping up
	On Desolation Row

Only difference is that the princess is in the ambulance, or should  
have been, and it's Romeo who's sweeping up on desolation row. No  
matter, nobody really "belongs" in this landscape where the sky is too  
large, horses go mad, a place where it was almost an affront for  
humans to be living there at all.

Before we go any further; as your humble servant, I ask of all of you  
still reading to ponder on the figure of Sarah -- the mythic figure --  
and contemplate how the story of Sarah in the Bible reflects on the  
story of Sarah in "V." Those of you who have already made missives on  
the subject in the past might seek out your earlier offerings, allow  
them to be re-pixilated for the eyeballs and other organs of our sick  
crew.

I thank you in advance

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	Gravity’s Rainbow – a small contribution
	to a certain degree, since there are over
	three and a half billion people in the world
	today. 218 million of them live in the
	United States which is a very, very small
	amount compared to those that are dying
	elsewhere…