BEER Group Read. Meeting cute

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

Good find and good questions.

Let's add GR to the present-tense novels? Flashbacks do start in the
past tense, but almost always shift swiftly into the present tense.


On Thu, 17 Oct 2013, jochen stremmel wrote:

> Our host: "back and forth in time in the narrative...."
>
> What I find (!) quite astonishing: that until now as far as I see (not
> very far, i readily admit) nobody here or in the reviews I very
> parsimoniously took note of mentioned that BE is the only Pynchon
> novel except M&D told mostly in the present tense and even in
> flashbacks falls easily back into it. Shouldn't a group read
> acknowledge that? Follow that? Ask what it means for the story - in
> relation to Inherent Vice for example?
>
> O-only asking.
>
> 2013/10/17 Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>:
> >
> > Yes, I say yes and I would add from the televisual culture lens, it
> > assimilates everyone, he sez.
> > From: Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com>
> > To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2013 4:07 AM
> >
> > Subject: Re: BEER Group Read. Meeting cute
> >
> > How could p write a book about ny, set during the great wave of immigration,
> > and not address immigration and assimilation to some extent? The fixing of
> > teeth has been mentioned and the dentists, but the nose job, there inV., the
> > changed names, could Dylan make it with a name like his?, for celebrity and
> > business...for success, Amy tan' waverly, shiksas, modeled by entertainers,
> > the erasure of ethnicity, the melting into the pot, these are, in part,
> > responses to racism, to anti-semitism in these examples. No? So immigrants
> > master the very difficult art of comic language in a new culture. This is
> > something to admire. No? And p is not Roth, or the other great Roth, both
> > have been accused, as p gas been even here, of getting it wrong, of
> > embarrassing, latent racism. So p takes a big risk commensurate with that of
> > the Jewish comedian, and succeeds. No? What would Lenny Bruce do?
> >
> > On Wednesday, October 16, 2013, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >
> > My first take is that the ethnicity of maxine, of the middle-aged foax in
> > this novel is.....reduced to an echo of
> > itself, so to speak....assimilation as virtual elimination.....Maxine jokes
> > Jewish but..........
> >
> > Her parents are.
> >
> > Same with the Wasps....also joked about as the wasp gene or
> > inheritance..........
> >
> >
> >
> > From: Fiona Shnapple <fionashnapple at gmail.com>
> > To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2013 7:23 PM
> > Subject: Re: BEER Group Read. Meeting cute
> >
> > But she is not, as the schlemiel is not, really chosen. The schlemiel is one
> > sent away from G-d, and the schlimazel, also a P protagonist, is born under
> > a bad star.  So, Jewish, chosen, but not elect but a castaway. This puts
> > them in good company in American fiction. See CLR James on Melville.
> >
> > http://www.clrjamesinstitute.org/pequod.html
> >
> > So, a web de bios double consciousness, Jewish in religion or ethnicity, is
> > doubled by the comic assimilation.
> >
> > The s, and the s, find a common scapegoat, the mother. And, the Jap, etc,
> > but the females, though, of course, the Jap, a assimilated ghetto girl is a
> > commodity, marketable, as and for old and new Jews and consumers of Jewish
> > stereotype tv, film, etc. so George is "Jewish" as are jerry and jason. The
> > parents are the old Jewish, in tv land where the actors slide into roles
> > that the audience has been taught is Jewish, and  in the Jewish community.
> > Of course, P, is playing the Simpsons card, a bag gag Joak, that
> > Woody Allen must find an Oedipus wreck.
> >
> > On Wednesday, October 16, 2013, Robin Landseadel wrote:
> >
> > It sez that on an instinctual level, Maxi is one of the "Chosen People". The
> > Catholic/Calvinist matrix of Pynchon's points to Elect/Preterite, the Jewish
> > sense of these things is sorta different, sorta not. The Jewish People know
> > they are "Chosen", chosen for what, how am I supposed to know  SERENITY
> > NOW!!!
> >
> > But being "Chosen" precludes the possibility that Maxi's Preterite [Hint
> > Reg's a preterite], so her sexual radar will have to land with a "Suitable
> > Mate". One of the things that makes "BE" so perplexing for long-time readers
> > of Pynchon is that for once?[catches breath al la Lee Strasberg as Hymie
> > Roth in Godfather II, (1974)]?for once, the protagonist's not some freakin'
> > schlemiel.
> >
> > Leaving Maxi to wonder why she she's been with such "winners" if you catch
> > my drift. In that regard, more than anything else, she reminds me of Elaine.
> >
> > On Oct 16, 2013, at 3:19 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >
> > But what Maxine does on her grief-reducing cruise is to
> > fuck "the real estate obsessive"........Symbolic I'd say (as well as real
> > enough)
> >
> > "Friendship?" Reg is puzzled..."You didn't even like hiim."
> > "A technical term".......[sez Maxine].
> >
> > Sex happens. What does THIS say about Maxine?
> > About fucking?
> > About friendship?
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l