BEER Group Read. "How is this day different from any other day?

[Bekah]

But in BE I think fixing the date specifically in the first sentence is vital to any "correct" reading because the availability of the  tech stuff and 9/11 are fixed dates historically.  I looked up a whole lot of the techie stuff to see what was and/or what was not available by late 2001.  (I didn't get so far as exact month.)  -  If P is going to fix a date like that he has to live up to it in the rest of the novel - anachronisms are not acceptable.    As far as I was able to find,  he got it all right.   This might be part of the "peek into history" that classics (down the road 50 years)  often provide.  On the downside,  it's not quite history to many of us as we read it  - we lived it and our memories differ.  

Bekah


On Oct 13, 2013, at 5:27 AM, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:

> First page, first impressions.
> 
> Fixing dates is very important in "The Crying of Lot 49", the most obviously analogous of the author's other works. G-d figures in both, but in radically different ways. Oedipa—just a cover story for the author, of course, detailing weird scenes in Berkeley, San Francisco, Menlo Park, Stanford and regions south, up close and personal with the butchers of the TV industry and Military Industrial çomplex. Maxine/Maxi is of fixed address, who want's to know? The dead eye of the TV and the word God—that's your classic existential nightmare, circa 1964. Upper West Side, first day of spring, Maxi's no Oedipa, Maxi's a Mother. Earlier, in the trailer for the book of the [hopefully] the movie [so's the author can still afford his Upper West Side flat] movie, Slezeus informs us she's a MILF and available. So if were one of those panting fans of the invisible one, we already Know.
> 
> We know that "Oedipus" informs us of Psychotherapy, and the use of LSD as Psychotherapeutic aid is central to Lot 49. Maxine is Hebrew for "Enchanted", which now that I'm looking at, makes a whole lotta sense. It can also be the Feminine form of Maximus, the Latin term for "The Greatest".  As Nicholas Nookshaft & the author that dare not show his face would tell you, the act of Naming is critical for a Magical enterprise to spring to life.
> 
> "In the system"—TV cop talk for "Yeah, we already know we're dealin' wid a crook here, so?" But of course "In the system" insinuates the presence of a computer. "Tarnow" is a family name that mostly points to Poland, It also points to a Dentist! In the forefront of Dental Implant Research! His Mother is doubtless Kvelling at the very thought!  All this a few clicks away on the computer! Do you think the author intended for me to do that?
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_P._Tarnow
> 
> And Loeffler points to the Laffer Curve.
> 
> That "So?" will be a constant "What's it to you?" embedded in the local culture. as if we didn't already know.
> 
> A tree is not a Bush. If ever if an obvious symbol appeared— jeez . . .
> 
> " . . . (after you get a little time in—whatever that means over here—one of these archetypes gets to look pretty much like any other, oh you hear some of these new hires, the seersucker crowd come in the first day, "Wow! Hey—that's th-th' Tree o' Creation! Huh? Ain't it! Je-eepers!" but they calm down fast enough, pick up the reflexes for Intent to Gawk, you know self-criticism's an amazing technique, it shouldn't work but it does. . " GR, 417 in my copy.
> 
> And as Trees of Life go, this is both a mighty one, what with production values that are beyond the scope of the virtual world—Like the kids say, it doesn't suck—and a pretty obvious one, being coupled to the first day of spring and as a Local event as well, seeing as those Pear Trees are an Upper West side phenom, like the Plum Trees of Berkeley that burst into bloom on Imbolc. Unlike the opening passages of the very immature CoL49, we have a Mother who Knows here, possibly the first wise protagonist in a Pynchon novel. One thing that separates Maxi from the rest—she ain't the Preterite. She's only temporarily displaced.
> 
> 
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