Tressell, Ellison, Pynchon: Emulsion & Petrifying Liquids or Painting the Roses Red

[Monte Davis]

Douglass in Ireland figures prominently in _TransAtlantic_.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of Markekohut
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 7:14 AM
To: alice wellintown
Cc: pynchon -l
Subject: Re: Tressell, Ellison, Pynchon: Emulsion & Petrifying Liquids or Painting the Roses Red

Thanks for this, Alice...early morning lifelong learning.......Fascinating on Douglass....( trivial current tidbit: Did you hear about the Repubs trying to create " Frederick Douglas [black] conservative movement spelled it wrong as I just did to show not tell. 

Keep it up. 

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 26, 2013, at 6:36 AM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm quite certain most are familiar with Ellison, his Invisible Man, 
> the paint factory in that novel and the labor meeting in the factory.
> I'm sure most know quite a bit about Ellison and the issues of White 
> and Black in his work. Same goes for P, so I won't start with Slothrop 
> in the paint factory in GR, how or why P also uses Black and White, 
> issue of race, Slothrap as Charlie Chaplin and Hitler the House 
> painter or the factory and why it is burned down, but will move into 
> Tressell because most, I guess, know less of him. I'm just digging in 
> but am fascinated by this Kute Korrespondence.
> 
> So the Irish have a long and troubleds history with Blacks. In 
> Ireland, Frederick Douglass, who was only recently recognized by the 
> American President with a statue in Washington, is a hero there; his 
> face, his words are painted on the murals in North and South; he was a 
> champion of Irish Freedom and Catholic Emancipation; he visited 
> Ireland; he never forgot what he learned from them and he felt an 
> affinity from youth to old age. In any event, Frederick Douglass is 
> known as a great orator and abolitionist, teacher, statemen, so 
> on...but we should do well to remember that he was, above all else, a 
> labor organizer. His Narrative is, yes...about work. Anyway, Tressell 
> goes to south Africa....
> 
> A Ragged Trousered Philanthropist and the Empire: Robert Tressell in 
> South Africa Jonathan Hyslop
> 
> Abstract
> Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists probably had a 
> greater impact upon the twentieth century British labour movement than 
> any other novel. Tressell was the pen name of the Irish-born Robert 
> Noonan. His book tells of a group of artisans in the southern English 
> town of ‘Mugsborough’, drawing on Noonan's experience as a painter in 
> Hastings, from about 1901 to 1910. This paper suggests that previous 
> analyses of the novel have missed the crucial importance of the 
> colonial dimension of Noonan's life. From about 1890 to 1901, Noonan 
> lived in South Africa, first in the British Cape Colony then in the 
> Boer-controlled Transvaal. The novel's critique of English society, it 
> is suggested, reflects both Noonan's Irish background and his African 
> experience. The paper seeks to demonstrate that a major sub-plot of 
> the novel draws directly on Noonan's experience of, and reflection on, 
> the break-up of his Cape Town marriage. Noonan's Socialism, it is 
> contended, originated in the Johannesburg labour movement, and The 
> Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is also argued to have owed its broad 
> appeal to Noonan's deliberate avoidance in the book of two issues 
> which loomed large in his life during his South African years: Irish 
> nationalism and racial segregationism in the labour movement.
> 
> 
> 
> On 7/25/13, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I do like the young scholar's Dis on Film in American Lit, and 
>> especially, as I said, the read of GR as a novel that, like MASH, is 
>> a critique of American war in South East Asia, in Vietnam. And, while 
>> the claim that one can't get GR unless one gets the use of film is a 
>> bit much, it's only a bit much, and anywayz, worth reading with a 
>> little charity becuase the rest of the young scholar's work is very 
>> fine indeed.
>> 
>> In any event,  before we get to painting the roses red (and if you've 
>> not seen Disney's Alice, the cold war Alice, check it out), and the 
>> irony of socialist and communist ideas in the authors mentioned, they 
>> are, again,  Tressell, Ellison, and Pynchon, I want to say that I 
>> decided to read RTP because a P-Lister said that Frank, a character 
>> in RTP, seems related ot Frank in AGTD. I must admit that I was a bit 
>> skeptical at first, but as it is a great work of art, what could be 
>> the harm in reading it.
>> 
>> I want first to take us to a scene in that novel:
>> 
>> By the end of April nearly all the old hands were back at work, and 
>> several casual hands had also been taken on, the Semi-drunk being one 
>> of the number. In addition to these, Misery had taken on a number of 
>> what he called 'lightweights', men who were not really skilled 
>> workmen, but had picked up sufficient knowledge of the simpler parts 
>> of the trade to be able to get over it passably. These were paid 
>> fivepence or fivepence-halfpenny, and were employed in preference to 
>> those who had served their time, because the latter wanted more money 
>> and therefore were only employed when absolutely necessary. Besides 
>> the lightweights there were a few young fellows called improvers, who 
>> were also employed because they were cheap.
>> 
>> Crass now acted as colourman, having been appointed possibly because 
>> he knew absolutely nothing about the laws of colour. As most of the 
>> work consisted of small jobs, all the paint and distemper was mixed 
>> up at the shop and sent out ready for use to the various jobs.
>> 
>> Sawkins or some of the other lightweights generally carried the 
>> heavier lots of colour or scaffolding, but the smaller lots of colour 
>> or such things as a pair of steps or a painter's plank were usually 
>> sent by the boy, whose slender legs had become quite bowed since he 
>> had been engaged helping the other philanthropists to make money for 
>> Mr Rushton.
>> 
>> Crass's work as colourman was simplified, to a certain extent, by the 
>> great number of specially prepared paints and distempers in all 
>> colours, supplied by the manufacturers ready for use. Most of these 
>> new-fangled concoctions were regarded with an eye of suspicion and 
>> dislike by the hands, and Philpot voiced the general opinion about 
>> them one day during a dinner-hour discussion when he said they might 
>> appear to be all right for a time, but they would probably not last, 
>> because they was mostly made of kimicles.
>> 
>> One of these new-fashioned paints was called 'Petrifying Liquid', and 
>> was used for first-coating decaying stone or plaster work. It was 
>> also supposed to be used for thinning up a certain kind of patent 
>> distemper, but when Misery found out that it was possible to thin the 
>> latter with water, the use of 'Petrifying Liquid' for that purpose 
>> was discontinued. This 'Petrifying Liquid' was a source of much 
>> merriment to the hands. The name was applied to the tea that they 
>> made in buckets on some of the jobs, and also to the four-ale that 
>> was supplied by certain pubs.
>> 
>> One of the new inventions was regarded with a certain amount of 
>> indignation by the hands: it was a white enamel, and they objected to 
>> it for two reasons--one was because, as Philpot remarked, it dried so 
>> quickly that you had to work like greased lightning; you had to be 
>> all over the door directly you started it.
>> 
>> The other reason was that, because it dried so quickly, it was 
>> necessary to keep closed the doors and windows of the room where it 
>> was being used, and the smell was so awful that it brought on fits of 
>> dizziness and sometimes vomiting. Needless to say, the fact that it 
>> compelled those who used it to work quickly recommended the stuff to 
>> Misery.
>> 
>> As for the smell, he did not care about that; he did not have to 
>> inhale the fumes himself.
>>