BE: Inside Flap

[Mark Kohut]

Carville already pointed to one Seinfeld show allusded to...


From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Wednesday, October 9, 2013 10:12 AM
Subject: BE: Inside Flap


The author's brief description of Bleeding Edge on the inside cover  
runs over both flaps, ending with the sentence "Hey, Who wants to  
know?" Before that, we find out that the author is "Channeling his  
inner Jewish mother", said Jewish Mother being Maxi, I'd guess. "One  
hell of a Mother" to paraphrase Viv Stanshall. But the author also  
asks "Will Jerry Seinfeld make an unscheduled guest appearance?" One  
might say that this question sets up certain expectations. One might  
also say that we have to determine for ourselves—"Is this a "Right  
Question" or is this a "Wrong Question"? Is this a key to content or  
another red herring?

One thing I'd take a crack at here—I don't think the Jewish World View  
was at the center of any of the author's previous works, save in it's  
erasure in Gravity's Rainbow, along with the erasure of a host of  
other cultures, tribes. Otherwise, it might be mentioned, might leave  
a trail of breadcrumbs that lead to some aspects of Jewish Mysticism  
in the general "Woo-woo" category that Pynchon spends so much time  
pursuing. But there are also all those elements of the most secular  
aspects of Jewish culture, particularly those that the Upper West side  
embodies. Passover is celebrated by folks who've got a Yantra on one  
wall, a Ketubah on another next to a Tibetan Thanka  and a Xena poster  
on the third. "How is this day different than any other day?" Good  
question.

So, as the Crying of Lot 49 is ruled by the Catholic calender, I'll  
take a stab at the notion that the Jewish calendar might have similar  
significance in this book. Waiting for that "unscheduled guest  
appearance" and the empty seat at the Thanksgiving suggest passover to  
me. In this regard, calendar-wise, turned upside down. But clearly the  
calendar counts. You don't start and end a book on the first day of  
spring without that being something the author is pointing at.

If this books feels different if might be that the rules of the game  
have shifted. The references to the occult that usually pile up like  
empty styrofoam cups on the roadsides of Pynchon's books are more  
neatly tucked away in the corners of this book. The author seems a bit  
more "occult" about these things this time than say in "Against the  
Day."

I can't get over the notion that the TV show "Seinfeld" will prove to  
be a major frame of reference here.

Seinfeld as Elijah? Why not?-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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