metaphysical club

[Joseph Tracy]

I've been gardening more and not checking the p-list for awhile, so was a bit surprised at  this cool high intensity response to my post on Menand's history. 

There were several interesting dovetails with ATD: the local depression and labor disputes in Chicago after the Exposition closed,  unconscious classism of the Colleges and the rich, the psychological after effects of the Civil war,  the weird theories  and characters of a more speculative era of science,psychology, philosophy, religion, the connections between captains of industry and commerce and universities. All the characters in ATD  with perhaps the exception in some odd way of  Cyprian or Lew seemed to be in that era of pragmatism and also to be experiencing an interesting array of the "Varieties of Religious Experience" including everything from cyclomite revelations  to time travel and preaching wolves( cyclopropane invented 1881, both anaesthetic and explosive) .   I think H James Princess C would be  fascinating as a visceral entry to the time period.  

If the pragmatism of this era was supposed to prevent large conflict through compromise it succeeded only as a temporary avoidance. WW1 was much a replay of the civil war, bloody charges , massive attrition, with the addition of poison gas.  

I have mixed feelings about the Metaphysical Club with a couple weeks distance.. It just seemed too safe to really get at the intensity and drama of the debates, personalities and social struggles  he covers. My respect for what Pynchon did in ATD continues to grow. It is my personal favorite Pynchon Novel.


On May 9, 2012, at 10:23 AM, bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

> Interesting, thought provoking. There is probably
> much that dovetails with ATD. Speaking of the
> James bros., specifically, I am reminded of
> "The Princess Casamassima,' which is planted
> in ATD much the way a sponsored product is
> planted in a modern action movie (or artistically,
> like COL49 in The Mad Men...), a book (TPC)
> very much concerned with class warfare.
> 
> The anti-Hero of TPC, Hyacinth Robinson, the
> bastard son of a peasant woman and a rapa-
> cious English lord, is raised in near poverty, and
> becomes a bookbinder. Although probably all
> coincidence, the p-list discussion of ATD, if
> memory serves, speculated on the two hard-
> cover versions of ATD- one with a green spine,
> the other batch, red (not quite the psychedelic
> versions of IV- more muted, steampunk hues),
> but not as tie-in with Hyacinth and his trade.
> 
> The question of book covers and judging did
> come up, given the implied fraudulence of the
> rest of the ATD cover, with its "counterfeit"
> Tuvo-ian stamp floating across the bottom, and
> the offset, double-imaged title- presumably
> mimicking the effect of Iceland Spar. All of which,
> I think, points to the same sort of distrust of
> Imperative or pre-determined paradigms that
> the Pragmatists Menand discusses were
> bored with, but not able to totally escape, and
> still "make sense."
> 
> Besides, Hyacinth, for all his wimpatude,
> reminds me a good deal of Cyprian, who
> also sacrifices himself, in many ways, and
> for the presumed benefit of others, who are
> maybe less than appreciative. The sect that
> Cyprian joins, however, led by the dude with
> the tetractys tattooed on his forehead- could
> be the cover of a book- Anthropodermic Bibliopegy-
> how should we judge?
> 
> Or, maybe, it's to remind novitiates not to
> judge by preconceived patterns- all the
> received wisdom of the past, from the pytha-
> gorean-platonic, to the judeo-christian-
> half of it all canned- but, instead, to look at
> the way things are in a "loose and baggy"
> and less than certain or presumptious style-
> open to all possibilities, especially the
> pragmatic, if not the convenient.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> To: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, May 9, 2012 4:24 am
> Subject: metaphysical club
> 
> I  recently finished Menand's The Metaphysical Club....