Back to AtD Cyprian again

[alice wellintown]

The Thomas R. Pynchon factory has no products; the Pynchon Industry,
however, manufactures, even in a depression, beyond capacity, not
subject to the law of diminishing returns, not even to strikes and
tuition hikes. Here, where the strike continues, the book stores and
cafes are full of passionate intensity without conviction, without
order but with much progress all around.

from our favorite Pee-disser, Wooden James:

It is a problem for allegory that, while going about its allegorical
business, it draws attention to itself. It is like someone who
undresses in front of his window so that he can be seen by his
neighbors. Allegory wants us to know that it is being allegorical. It
is always saying: watch me, I mean something, I mean something. In
this, it is very different from most great fiction. (It resembles bad
fiction.) Why does anyone tolerate it? In literature, we rarely do. It
is forgiven its hieroglyphics when it overcomes itself and behaves
like great fiction (Kafka, some Dickens); when it elaborates
complicated and deep truths (Dante, Kafka again); or when it explodes
itself in the hunt for deep truth (Melville). It is tolerated when it
is not only a map, but a landscape, too.

Thomas Pynchon is the most allegorical American writer since Melville
and, for better or worse, the clear inheritor of Melville's broken
estate. But his novels behave like allegories that refuse to
allegorize. They pile up meanings and disown them at the same time; it
is no accident that Pynchon so loves the shaggy dog story, which does
the same. (His new novel is built on the shaggy dog story.) Thus he
has created readers who think that he is a great occultist and readers
who think that he is a visited hoaxer. His novels are huge manic
factories that seem alive but are deeply static. They do not move.
Yes, they twirl meanings around, they displace meanings; but they do
not finally produce meaning. The factory has no products.



On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 8:17 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
>