TRTR(I.6) Insect Is Best
Mark Kohut
markekohut at yahoo.com
Mon Jun 6 06:42:27 CDT 2011
File under Gaddis' timeless Americana insights:
Chap 6..."high protein diet" is hot, being advertised...1950's and
just yesterday, still now, today, 2011....
----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Mon, June 6, 2011 6:13:41 AM
Subject: Re: TRTR(I.6) Insect Is Best
who was this Palinurus anyway?
------------
As the price for the safe passage of Aeneas and his people from Sicily
to Italy, Palinurus loses his life, one on behalf of many ('unum pro
multis dabitur caput' according to Vergil's "Neptune" (Aeneid 5.815).
Somnus causes Palinurus to fall asleep and fall overboard. (Palinurus'
own version at Aeneid 6.349 does not blame the god.)
....
When Aeneas and the Sibyl meet Palinurus in the Underworld, the Sibyl
promises that the local people will be moved by signs to provide the
helmsman's body with a proper burial, at what is now Cape
Palinuro.[1][2]
(from http://www.answers.com/topic/palinurus-1#ixzz1OUMGtGpC )
--------------
Price paid to whom? I know in those days there were all kinds of
entities that had to be placated and bought off. It's almost a
Christian theme, giving his life as a sacrifice for many. So the
little cockroach asleep at the wheel (or toilet paper roll, mutatis
mutandis) - is he a sacrifice for many? The Ottster no doubt crushes
him without a second thought, as is our custom.
Is the mention of him in the book meant as a way of "moving the local
people by signs to provide the little guy a proper laying to rest" -
just to take a second to consider that critter's life as a Ding an
sich, so to say, laying the cockroach's spirit (such as it may be) to
rest, and by extension, the spirits of all the bugs we customarily
kill, to redeem ourselves as compassionate creatures and not complete
layers of waste to nature, for a moment merely to think maybe there
ought to be a kinder, gentler way that we just do not know about and
therefore must proceed against the depredations these bugs would
otherwise inflict?
On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Jed Kelestron <jedkelestron at gmail.com> wrote:
> The chapter begins with Hera's gaddisfly awakening Otto and ends with
> a toilet paper cockroach Palinurus overboard snoozing splat upon the
> floor.
>
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