Back to AtD Cyprian again

[Mark Kohut]

YES...in some oblique, associative way, this is a gloss on Cyprian.....imho...
 
Wunderbar...

From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 6:32 AM
Subject: Re: Back to AtD Cyprian again

I am reminded of Ahab: though he sails the mighty Pacific he carries a
vial of Nantucket sand in his pocket. As he closes in on the White
Whale he takes it out and he looks at it. Early on, a typical yet
brilliant chapter describes Nabtucket and its history. And, celebrates
with hyperboles and conciets, the workers who ahve, from that tiny
speck of sand, conquered the sea.

Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of
the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more
lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it- a mere hillock, and
elbow of sand; all beach, without a background.

http://www.classicreader.com/book/309/14/


Looking at that piece of Nantucket, Ahab turns to praise the sun and
the sea. Then, Fedallah tells Ahab he will die of hemp, and it seems,
from what he is told, that Ahab will hang, surely on land and not here
at sea. Ahab looks to his quadrant, an instrument that gauges the
position of the sun, to determine the ship’s latitude.  Deciding that
it doesn’t give him the information that he wants, he tramples it
underfoot.

A storm that sets the masts aflame also causes the needle of Ahab;s
compass to malfunction.

He employs the old log and line method, but ti too fails him.

And so, as Lear with his Fool, Ahab takes solace in Pip. The brilliant
Black boy now mad with the visions of God;s foot on the treddle
spinning the tapestry, the mantle of the Earth (shall I project a
world?).

  What happened to our moral compass? Why Ishmael, flawed though he
be, is still tied to the mast that is his brother in labor, his
spouse, his dark companion. But Ahab, a tragic figure, has forced the
comic couple off the stage. And all the world, all the stage, a ship,
and Ahab her captain.

The needle spins. Though there is design, some four corners or causes,
or at least a circle, a return, if only for Ishmael, this is an early
experiment. The Confidence Man is turning in Melville;s mind and will
pull the needle out and toss us into the sea, alone, like little Pip.

Pynchon may have inherited a broken estate from Melville (J. Wood) and
allegory may be as useless to him as to the reader who hopes to gage
his speed with log and line when all lines are singled up and tangled
in the mnemonic depths where Pip, broken and all alone, a castaway,
bobbed and spun under the sun.
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