GR translation: demolition man

[Paul Mackin]

On 11/10/2012 11:14 AM, David Morris wrote:
> I don't think Pynchon is valuing rational over superstitious.  GR 
> takes the question of both quite seriously. And he also implies that 
> both spring from an internal mechanism that is basic to human thought.

Yes, in this case the superstitious interpretation of the coffee tin 
correctly announces Katje.

I guess I thought that, given the framework of Kabbalistic myth and the 
expected inversion thereof,  I saw sympathetic magic, based as it is on 
the assumption that a person or thing can be supernaturally affected 
through its name or an object representing it, as a perversion of 
testing Pudding's purity at the second antechamber.  Of course the thing 
you have to put alongside is that even the very purest in another 
person's religion is seen as a superstition from the outside. So maybe 
we have a perversion of a perversion.  Pudding correctly accessed  his 
fate but by impure means.

Ad infinitum.

P




>
> On Friday, November 9, 2012, Paul Mackin wrote:
>
>     On 11/8/2012 2:02 AM, jochen stremmel wrote:
>
>         I think what Pynchon refers to here is more general, not only
>         in the
>         context of WW II or the high and low contact. It's about "a
>         repetition
>         high and low", low like the malignant pun a filthy, mocking
>         scoundrel
>         might make and high like a sympathetic magic.
>
>         It's about playing with words and images, similes, metaphors.
>         Like the
>         demolition man and the Trembler he sees in a spoon between a
>         glass and
>         a plate, if he has to do the dishes.
>
>     Going beyond the specific examples, we might want also to note
>     that this superstitious and magical thinking is meant to exemplify
>     impurity, the opposite of what the second level is supposed to
>     produce or demonstrate?
>
>     Thinking that contact of the spoon with the cup might produce an
>     explosion--or that a coffee brand name by mere name association
>     will bring forth a cruel lady--are pollutions of thought. (of
>     course in this case there IS a cruel lady)
>
>     And outside the Kabbalistic framework, the interrelatedness of all
>     things for the paranoiac is suggested.  To the paranoiac
>     everything is connected.  At least in Pynchon. Not sure how that
>     applied to Pudding, but still . . . .
>
>     P
>
>
>         2012/11/7 Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>:
>
>             Jochen is correct about “demolition man” in  general, but
>             in a WWII context
>             I think it means Explosive Ordnance Disposal,  someone who
>             *disarms* bombs.
>             A “trembler” is a vibration-sensitive switch, its central
>             tongue (an
>             electrical contact) closing the circuit if it touches
>             either the “high”
>             contact above or the “low” contact beneath.
>
>
>
>             From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
>             [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
>             Of Mike Jing
>             Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 2:22 AM
>             To: Pynchon Mailing List
>             Subject: GR translation: demolition man
>
>
>
>             P234.35-235.4  In the second antechamber is an empty red
>             tin that held
>             coffee. The brand name is Savarin. He understands that it
>             means to say
>             “Severin.” Oh, the filthy, the mocking scoundrel. . . .
>             But these are not
>             malignant puns against an intended sufferer so much as a
>             sympathetic magic,
>             a repetition high and low of some prevailing form (as, for
>             instance, no sane
>             demolition man at his evening dishwater will wash a spoon
>             between two cups,
>             or even between a glass and a plate, for fear of the
>             Trembler it implies . .
>             . because it’s a trembler-tongue he really holds, poised
>             between its two
>             fatal contacts, in fingers aching with having been so
>             suddenly reminded). .
>             . .
>
>             What is the "demolition man" mentioned here?  Why the fear
>             of tremblers?
>             What is a trembler anyway?
>
>             Also, what is the meaning of "high and low" in "a
>             repetition high and low"?
>
>

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