Wandering Oh Rocks ("tell us in American words")

[M Choakumchild]

Molly's protest provides little comfort to the exasperated reader who,
like Odysseus,  sails on through Joyce's wandering rocks.  Of course,
the reader, strapped to the mast, is rewarded with a song only (this
will get me in trouble with those pc-police) an Irishman, singing in a
language forced upon his tongue as coal tar water but made into
diamonds under the pressure of Jesuits, can sing. Joyce had a good
ear. But he had more than good ear; he knew a good deal about
language. In the chapter ostensibly under discussion here Tom Pynchon
the younger tries out more than the ear he hasn't got yet, he shows
off his knowledge of things linguistic and ha dabbles in a bit of
communications theory: he applies his Adams and McLuhan and Graves and
Rougemont & Co.  The inanimate objects that cause Benny so much
trouble have names. Man is tool maker. Man is word maker too. Usually,
but not always, we have an object and we give it a name. Sometimes,
though, as we learn from Humpty, we start with the word. Benny, not
quite content to be a Man, plays God. Man gets to name stuff. God made
stuff from chaos and was there, in the beginning, when there was only
the Word.  So Benny, like some mock-Prometheus, steals language from
the Gods.He is punished and he doesn't quite know how to navigate the
wandering rocks. Where is Athena? Playing with the boyz.

We've mentioned Tanner's wonderful book, _The American Mystery_. Ian
F. A. Bell's Introduction can be read online.

Thanks for reading,

Mr. M