AtD: Lew,a moral center

[Mark Kohut]

yeah, Lew and Merle, plot ellipses....although I think Merle is wilfully damaged as a central moral center...
Tries selling Dally early...is a photographer and always moving for the main chance......
In some ways the American striver....wants to get rich......gold via alchemy, which there ain't .............
 
 

From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 3:21 PM
Subject: Re: AtD: Lew,a moral center


anyway, that figure with 2 centers is an ellipse. 
it was gratifying way back in math class to learn you can tie a loop of string, put 2 golf tees in a pegboard, and put a pencil inside the loop and drag it around forming an ellipse...
the center points are called the foci

so if you had a twinned moral centering consisting of Lew and Merle, the ellipse would take in detection (in Freudian terms, isn't that related to spying on one's parents in bed?) and practical science (in Freudian terms, looking up Nature's skirt?)

moving along, if there is an archetypal ontology in AtD, you'd have something like

the eternal rebel (in fact, Pynchon ties in Webb's rebelliousness to having Confederate forebears)

the 3 sons (only classical example comes to mind atm is Fred MacMurray's...but there must be others)

the grieving widow (Mrs Webb)

the Plutocrat (vibe being Pluto and the former Ms Beef as Persephone as she only spends some of the time with him)

Merle as Vulcan, in the smithy of the gods (and cuckold), but also as Merlin the Mage
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