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

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/3/2012 10:21 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> Paul Mackin writes:
> The issue from the Cyprian/Yashmeen/Reef trio needs to have more
> significance than merely perpetuating the species, as important as that
> is. Her snatching from the world of brilliance requires some higher
> order purpose if this section of the book is to be saved.
> The Holy Family thing obviously has big holes in it, but I can't at the
> moment think of anything better.
> At one point, Ljubica puts flowers in a gun barrel.......part of TRP's
> sixties images and themes? ( a little groan-worthy by now?)

Maybe it was let a hundred flowers blossom. Naw.

	
> And, re maths......I think that Yashmeen giving up higher math is
> part of TRP's book-length general satirization of the uses of math
> in the modern world.......

Y certainly had an inflated idea of what you can do with math. Still 
there's a lot you CAN do with it. Once she realized this she would have 
been very good.


>  From Plato thru "mad Dog' Russell, mathematicians talk of the abstraction
> that is mathematics and abstraction links with the daylit fictions, the
> balloon,
> the bloviations of most in AtD, I would argue.
> And, we don't live in the world of mathematics, we live in the world of
> children's sensations, I think TRP puts out there thematically---
> & he also might have gotten related notions from McLuhan......

Math is an advanced form of rationality. Rationality is an evolutionary 
adaptation. As such it is a practical tool, not some Platonic ideal. It 
doesn't have to make perfect sense. Goedel and all that.

P
>
> *From:* Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
> *To:* pynchon-l at waste.org
> *Sent:* Sunday, June 3, 2012 9:49 AM
> *Subject:* Re: Back to AtD Reimann maths ain't life. p.891
>
> On 6/2/2012 11:46 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>  > Paul Mackin wrote:
>  >
>  >> Alice knows. What we are witnessing in the foundation of the Holy Family
>  >> Traverse in which Yashmeen is to become the mother of the baby Jes .
> . . .
>  >> And a good deal of purple prose is necessary get this across, make it
>  >> sufficiently portentous.
>  >
>  > Yes, Paul, I tend to forget that there are more levels to this than
>  > the feminist angle I was focusing on.
>  > The Holy Family stuff with Cyps and Reef and Yashmeen, I got to admit,
>  > slides by me largely unappreciated.
>  >
>  > It reminds me of that prison family stuff that the late-capitalist
>  > pearl girl in IV talks about...
>  >
>  > You go into the pages of history with the personnel you have, not the
>  > personnel that you might want to have.
>  >
>  > The symbolism of the eagle is broader than just the "oh no, Yashmeen's
>  > about to get predated into family life"
>  > The eagle's diet is the ground-dwelling vermin and compared to making
>  > a family, I suppose that any commercial or intellectual occupation
>  > makes of one by comparison a rat, a shrew, or a vole -- I guess
>  > that's why they play Mack the Knife at wedding receptions...
>  >
>  > This is where my viewpont re-converges with Mark's: yes, ultimately
>  > the continuance of the species is more important than whatever
>  > individual accomplishments one might have wanted to see from Yashmeen.
>  > She did, after, make that anonymous contribution in Professor
>  > Hilbert's class, and how many of us get to make even an anonymous
>  > contribution -- things are tough all over, we're all riding that
>  > Ferris Wheel and all you might be offered is a bite of jellied eel...
>  >
>
>
>
> The issue from the Cyprian/Yashmeen/Reef trio needs to have more
> significance than merely perpetuating the species, as important as that
> is. Her snatching from the world of brilliance requires some higher
> order purpose if this section of the book is to be saved.
>
>
> The Holy Family thing obviously has big holes in it, but I can't at the
> moment think of anything better.
>
> P
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