V-2 - Chapter 9 - Sarah's Story

[Ian Livingston]

On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 7:16 AM, Robin Landseadel
<robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>        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”
>

Isaac's side of the story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm1QyIEFYwk

On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 7:16 AM, Robin Landseadel
<robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>        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
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>        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…



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."