Horst

[Fiona Shnapple]

The Kindness of Strangers/Stranglers (a pun-allusion to Streetcar and
the violence of Horst/Stan)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kindness_of_Strangers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQx1OcIlFqE

Created in a genre defined as docufiction,
semi-documentary/semi-fiction,[2] the film is not tightly scripted.
The writers wrote a basic story outline but allowed the eight women to
improvise their dialogue. Each of the women, all but one of whom were
senior citizens, told stories from her own life. A major theme of the
film is how the elderly women each face aging and mortality in their
own way, and find the courage together to persevere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Company_of_Strangers

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com> wrote:
> In the old methods of literary analysis we would surely have a major
> problem with Horst as sympathetic character because he abuses Maxine.
> We can't help but love Maxine, the text makes her the most sympathetic
> character, perhaps, of any Pynchon comedy to date. And so, when Horst
> strangles her and she puns her way out of it, the company of
> stranglers indeed, we begin to see what Max's mother sees in Horst, or
> what she doesn't see.
>
> On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 8:24 AM, Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com> wrote:
>> When is a toilet not just a toilet? Anytime we follow a Pynchon
>> character into one. When we meet Horst, as the narrative flashes back
>> to when Max met Horst, they are drinking and the Bozo, Horst, is
>> punning on the Toilet. We're in the Ceres in Chicago. Max is on a CFE
>> chore, Horst is in his old stomping grounds, a gin mill where everyone
>> is drinking Irish-sized cocktails and Max gets loaded up and argues
>> with Horst about Deloitte & Touche, or, as he puns them Louche & De
>> Toilet. Before she can recover, still in a hangover daze, he's on her
>> tail and nailing it to his schemes. From here, we most of the story in
>> the present tense of the novel, visits toilets and more toilets in and
>> around NYC, where, you can get anything you want, but you can't
>> make/take a shit/piss anywhere. The punning, the language of toilet,
>> the bathroom humor is like that roller you notice as your squeezing
>> Death out of your Life into the white toilet bowl, and SHIT!!!
>>
>> Stranded
>> Stranded
>> Stranded on a toilet bowl
>> Stranded
>> Stranded
>> Stranded on a toilet bowl
>> What do you do when you're stranded
>> And there ain't nothing on the roll?
>> To prove you're a man
>> You must wipe it with your hand
>> Stranded
>> Stranded on a toilet bowl !
>>
>> SHIT!   FUCK! FUCK YOU!
>>
>> Magic words of the Preterit
>>
>> So where does this power of profane words come from?
>> Well, you students of Orwell or Arendt.... know that totalitarianism
>> is, in part, synthesis and control of discourse. As early as those
>> Short Stories P is working on this theme, so that in Lowlands and in
>> TSI the junk, the waste, what is discarded, tossed away, disposed of,
>> the preterit shit...has magic in it, has great Natural Power, a
>> scatterbrained floundering fecundity. The power of the pun, of the
>> profane words, of the subversive preterit use of technology, of even
>> TV and pop culture, to counter the culture of the Elect producers of
>> prole productivity consumption, late capital, and counter their
>> esoteric technical language, the language of the Science Elite, this
>> is why a toilet is never just a toilet.
>>
>> So is Horst one of Them or one of Us. And in the end we're only
>> ordinary men....(Dark Side of the Bathroom)
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 5:10 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Sometimes a toilet is just a toilet, but a sewerage network is always
>>> "a series of tubes".
>>>
>>> On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 1:50 AM, Heikki Raudaskoski
>>> <hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Have a deadline to meet, but will be back for an self-exegesis asap,
>>>>
>>>> HR
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, 4 Dec 2013, Fiona Shnapple wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I may be confused by the use of the terms here, HD, so yeah, when you have
>>>>> a minute to explain, please and thanks.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wednesday, December 4, 2013, Michael Bailey wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> >
>>>>> > On Dec 3, 2013 10:22 AM, "Heikki Raudaskoski" <hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'hraudask at sun3.oulu.fi');>>
>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > > FWIW: in GR, the Toiletship episode (where showers are mentioned too) is
>>>>> > > associated to the aerodynamics man Horst Achtfaden, quite probably even
>>>>> > > fantasied by him. In BE, Reg's toilet episode precedes Maxine's shower
>>>>> > > encounter with Horst. These nice Pynchonian metonymies...
>>>>> > >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > > In both cases, though, toilets seem to stand metaphorically for something
>>>>> > > else (the Rocket's wind tunnel in GR, hashslingrzian secrets in BE). Yet
>>>>> > > the image of the Toiletship can also be seen as a metaphor of metonymy.
>>>>> > >
>>>>> > >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I join the clamor requesting elaboration!
>>>>> >
>>>>>
>>>> -
>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l