BE: echoes in coastal waters

[alice wellintown]

Well, I did cite a very good source that describes the river in detail. He
says it was quite impressive. His sources are dozens of primary documents.



On Thursday, August 22, 2013, Markekohut wrote:

> Paterson, of Williams' long poem, was built around part of the Passaic (
> 80 miles long I learn) and there is The great Falls and, as a pynchonian
> resonance, maybe, it was exploited early and deeply to make industrialism
> work.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Aug 22, 2013, at 5:41 PM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'alicewellintown at gmail.com');>>
> wrote:
>
>
> Right. I get it. So you think P has fucked up or what? Is it just a little
> joke? Titilating allusion don't you think?
>
> Btw, in Trans-Atlantic, a novel I like ver much, though I dislike
> Douglass, we hear run river run...and all manner of allusive stuff that
> springs up from a choppy hoppy prose style. He is best on the Irish, on
> words and meanings, weak when he has the lass in Manhattan.
>
>
> On Thursday, August 22, 2013, wrote:
>
>> The point is that the Passaic, under the best circumstance, would not
>> provoke awe and wonder.  There are reasons it's not known as the Mighty
>> Passaic.
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
>> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Thu, Aug 22, 2013 7:38 am
>> Subject: Re: BE: echoes in coastal waters
>>
>>  Seems to be the point, that it is almost impossible for us to imagine
>> the Passaic as it once appeared to those first Europeans, just as it was
>> nearly impossible for Carraway / Fitzgerald to imagine the LI Sound as it
>> appeared to the early explorers. The Passaic was much wider, it's forests
>> thick, and so on. See _History of the Passaic and its Environs_ Vol. 1
>> William Winfield Scott. For a look at The Sound, see _A Fine piece of
>> water, Andersen.
>>
>>  So what has happened to our capacity to wonder as the natural beauty of
>> he Earth has been deminished?
>>
>>  Also see
>>
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler_Antabanez
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, August 21, 2013, wrote:
>>
>>> As one who grew up in a town on the mighty river's bank, I can say he
>>> certainly has the correct example of water polluted by industry.  But I
>>> can't imagine anyone at any time feeling on the edge of possibilities
>>> sailing up the Passaic River.  Now the Hackensack ...
>>>
>>> “and for maybe a minute and a half she feels free—at least at the edge
>>> of possibilities, like whatever the Europeans who first sailed up the
>>> Passaic River must have felt, before the long parable of corporate sins and
>>> corruption that overtook it, before the dioxins and the highway debris and
>>> unmourned acts of waste.”
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>
>>> To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> Sent: Wed, Aug 21, 2013 5:19 am
>>> Subject: BE: echoes in coastal waters
>>>
>>>   We’ve so often quoted (and recognized in TRP) this from Fitzgerald:
>>>
>>> “…gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for
>>> Dutch sailors' eyes-a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished
>>> trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in
>>> whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory
>>> enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this
>>> continent…”
>>>
>>> It’s dawn, and Maxine and companions are in a boat on the Arthur Kill
>>> near Isle of Meadows, a huge NYC landfill site:
>>>
>>> “and for maybe a minute and a half she feels free—at least at the edge
>>> of possibilities, like whatever the Europeans who first sailed up the
>>> Passaic River must have felt, before the long parable of corporate sins and
>>> corruption that overtook it, before the dioxins and the highway debris and
>>> unmourned acts of waste.”
>>>
>>>
>>
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