Back to AtD Reimann maths ain't life. p.891

[Michael Bailey]

 Mark Kohut wrote:

> When Yashemen learns she is pregnant, she dreams of "a hunter arrived at
> last, a trainer of
> desert eagles, to unmask against her soul, the predatory descent that would
> seize her, fetch her away,
> fetch her back, held fast in the talons of communion, blood, destiny, to be
> plucked off the defective
> Reimann sphere she had been taking for everything that was".........
>
> What a way to say that becoming a mother moves one into the human community,
> eh?
>
> And what a way to indict THAT kind of math [and its metaphoric meanings]?

Mark, as usual I diverge, a bit, from that sort of reading.

I think that, like Frenesi in _Vineland_, Yashmeen's original quest
was worthwhile - more than worthwhile, it was essential...

Frenesi's resentment of the burdens of motherhood was completely
understandable and sympathizable-with.
Especially considering the possibility that the odious Vond was the daddy.
Well-meaning, blundersome Zoyd talks her past the desire for an
abortion--- unlike in V., where Esther doesn't actually have to bear
the odious Schoenmaker's spawn...  (admittedly Prairie herself is
worth the sacrifice...her desire for a mom - like Dahlia's in AtD - is
poignant and directly bears on the question being addressed
here...although that isn't my current focus)

As to the vision of a trainer of eagles, parsing that out a little, we get

- trainer of eagles, somebody usually part of a royal entourage
(anathema to the labor-consciousness of Traverse's intended
legacy)(somebody akin to a pinkerton in the service of a plute)

- that trainer would be (perhaps)(in dream calculation) Reef, with his
macho ways and math limited to gambling odds...he can neither
collaborate with her nor support her, but only bend her to his needs

- her vision of a flawed Riemann sphere is flawed because all the men
she's associated with (with the possible exception of that professor
who gleaned a gleaming conjecture from her comment in class - but he
never credited her did he?)  see her as a female and only a sex
object, none not even Kit really talks much math with her (at least
Cyprian admits he can't keep up with her in that department, but even
he isn't into accepting her quest and granting it intellectual
legitimacy, only offers her his adoration which she must - probably at
some personal cost - ignore in order to follow her inclination and
talent)

I really don't think Pynchon is affirming biology as destiny and
celebrating the dousing of Yashmeen's intellectual torch in the waters
of motherhood --- more like depicting the pressure of events and the
obliviousness of men (see _Vineland_, "Men had it so simple.  When it
wasn't about Sticking it In, it was about Having the Gun....") forcing
her into a Procrustean bed created over the ages, a gravity well of
limits - the limit of woman W as
B baby approaches
P parturition =
KKK Kinder Kueche Kirche...

in the eagle-trainer metaphor, her soul is the prey.  what's to
celebrate about that?


Ok, James Dickey did write that poem about a heaven for animals
celebrating the predator prey relationship, I guess...

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/171425

The Heaven of Animals By James L. Dickey

Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.

To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.

For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey

May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk

Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain

At the cycle’s center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.

-- 
"Strength you will acquire naturally, if you do plenty of work; and
dexterity you will acquire unconsciously with practice; but style you
can only acquire by constant attention, and then only if you have a
clear idea of what to aim at." - A. F. Jenkin