BEER Ch. 6, 53-57: knotting into March Kelleher

[Monte Davis]

I’m leaning to yours, David, but not 100% sold on any suggestion so far.
Consider context: Ziggy has just handed Maxine a flyer for March Kelleher’s
website,  autographed by March at the school assembly.

 

“’Hey, so you saw March. Well. In fact, well well.’ The hashslingrz legend
continues, here. March Kelleher happens to be Gabriel Ice’s mother-in-law
”

 

1.      Legend = cover story (maybe via Le Carre): March’s relationship to
Ice is a fact, not  part of a false identity or a deceptive background for
Ice or his company.

2.      Legend = saga, lore, myth: I’m not sure how it makes Ice or
hashslingrz more “legendary,” or affects their reputation at all,  to know
that his mother-in-law spoke at Kugelblitz

3.      Legend = key to interpretation: Maxine has not seen March for 10-15
years, and right now the only current information she has is that Marsh
talked about Bush and Saudi Arabia at the school assembly. That *might*
connect somehow, somewhere with the hashslingrz/Middle East hints on pp.
47-48 – in fact we know it will --  but at this moment, is it enough to
justify “the key to interpretation (of what hashslingrz is up to) has been
extended by this”..?

 

For what it’s worth, this sentence was a last-minute substitution. In the
ARC, the passage read:

 

“’Hey, so you saw March. Well. In fact, well well.’ She recognizes the name,
all right, March Kelleher is Gabriel Ice’s mother-in-law, for one thing, her
daughter Tallis and Ice having been
”

 

From: David Morris [mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 1:14 PM
To: jochen stremmel
Cc: Monte Davis; Thomas Eckhardt; pynchon -l
Subject: Re: BEER Ch. 6, 53-57: knotting into March Kelleher

 

Legend in this sense means a key to interpretation.

 

Like Rosetta Stone,

On Monday, October 28, 2013, jochen stremmel wrote:

I think you are right, Monte. Pynchon's use of "legend" here is in the
sense saga, lore, myth, not like Le Carré's usage, which might not be
MI6 argot but a Germanism, "Legende" in the sense of cover story for a
spy. I didn't look it up again in his books.

And Thomas is right, of course, with the "Schlageter" quote.
Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry offers two translation of the
original German: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Johst. And tells
that March is not alone with her misattribution to Goering.



2013/10/28 Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net <javascript:;> >:
> TE> Having just read some of Le Carré's novels, I find this reading of
> 'legend' quite convincing. This would suggest that hashslingerz is a CIA
> front, no?
>
> It's a tenuous association: I take Le Carre's usage to be MI6 argot, but
(1)
> don't remember seeing "legend" used that way in espionage fiction by
others;
> (2) don't know that TRP has read JLC, his peer in paranoia and
> hustle/counter-hustle; and (3) don't often see Maxine as thinking spy-wise
> rather than PI-wise. (Of course, one could debate whether that sentence
> speaks for Maxine or the narrator over her shoulder.)
>
> In any event, there are plenty of more compelling links between Gabriel
Ice
> and the Permanent Government. This one's quite possibly my illusion of
> connectedness, but I'm happy to share...
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l

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