There is high magic in low puns

[Markekohut]

I do not want to read any reviews yet but I have seen parts of some....From his analysis of the opening of GR, I am not that optimistic about this review. Screaming is metal death, as it is in ATD, not a "comparison".....it is a magnificent sound-blended metaphor--scholars, is there a name for that?--for how the metal is the bleeding edge of human death, so to speak or how sentient beings can die ( we can think of the horse in Guernica and more) ..and I have never and still don't believe TRP is anywhere near believing that " where eloquence can't go" confession of artistic.......failure? 

On the contrary, I think he has tried to use his eloquence divinely humanly. What else is his huge eloquent lyricism and over-the-top metaphoric talent to MEAN...tried to mean at least??....( Yes, I do think he thinks there  are metaphysical mysteries still left in life that he might not articulate literally......little to do with " where eloquence can't go", IMHO) 

" sees from a height"? THIS book? Not AtD?  

" gauze or glass"?....where? 

Nice try, Leo, your intentions are halfway there, he says condescendingly, rather than flamingly. 


Sent from my iPad

On Sep 26, 2013, at 6:08 PM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> " its West Coast principles"???
>  
> What fucking west coast principles?
>  
> This is the worst fucking review I've read.  
>  
> What an idiot. 50 years ago Tom said he wanted to write realistic fiction and has just got round to doing it? Is this guy smoking his own fuccking grass or snorting Ajax?
>  
> Jeeeez....some people.....read the fucking books.....
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 6:49 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>> "Calling a tech-centric novel 'Bleeding Edge' is like calling a
>> fictionalised life of Freud 'Penile Cigars'."
>> 
>> Not at all.
>> 
>> 2013/9/26 Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com>:
>> > You're right, that review is interesting. The passage you quote from....
>> >
>> > "It is probably fair at this advanced stage to note that Pynchon has an
>> > incurable obsession with language: its capacity for behaving like glass or
>> > gauze. The opening paragraph of Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) – “A screaming
>> > comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to
>> > compare it to now” – makes a point of stating where eloquence can’t go,
>> > either because we don’t hear V-2 rockets any more, or we no longer hear
>> > anything that resembles them, or because the only people who might have
>> > heard them were dead by the time they got the chance (being supersonic, the
>> > V-2 announces its arrival after it has already landed). But then “screaming”
>> > is already a comparison, a clarifying anthropomorphic metaphor. Fastforward
>> > more than half a century – from 1944 to 2001 – and there are even more
>> > phenomena to describe or half describe, more slang to borrow from espionage
>> > and economics, erotica and psychiatry. One of the things that Pynchon wants
>> > to expose is the way we massage things into metaphor and then forget that
>> > we’ve done it."
>> >
>> > ...is thought-provoking. But I struggle to connect what he's saying about
>> > Pynchon with what Pynchon has actually written in BE (or at least in its
>> > first 100 pages, which is where I'm up to). Robson is spot on with the love
>> > of language angle, but BE makes me feel as though Pynchon's ardor has
>> > cooled.
>> >
>> > Then there's this:
>> >
>> > "The book’s title, though a term in its own right (meaning new technology
>> > with risks attached), is repurposed here as a pun on a metaphor – the word
>> > “pun” being, as Gottlob Frege points out in Pynchon’s novel-beforelast
>> > Against the Day (2006), “und” upside down and back to front and a good way
>> > of bringing things together. Bleeding edge isn’t just a melding of a
>> > favoured phrase with the vaguest of themes. A bleeding edge is also an edge
>> > that has lost its sharpness, and one of Pynchon’s main subjects has always
>> > been identity’s lack of firmness, the habit things have of ceasing to be
>> > themselves – in this case, things such as the internet and New York."
>> >
>> > Again, good stuff. But again - say what? Calling a tech-centric novel
>> > 'Bleeding Edge' is like calling a fictionalised life of Freud 'Penile
>> > Cigars'.
>> >
>> > Maybe all will be clear once I've finished the book. For now, theories such
>> > as Robson's seem like wishful thinking. And whether Pynchon's thematic
>> > interests - and constructs - are really 'there' or not, the actual writing
>> > is sub-par. It isn't enough to throw out phrases which can come to seem
>> > freighted with multiple meanings and heightened contextual significance: we
>> > need to be entertained, and wowed by the elegant and unexpected use of
>> > language.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ________________________________
>> > From: montedavis at verizon.net
>> > To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> > Subject: There is high magic in low puns
>> > Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 06:16:11 -0400
>> >
>> >
>> > “It is probably fair at this advanced stage to note that Pynchon has an
>> > incurable obsession with language: its capacity for behaving like glass or
>> > gauze…. One of the things that Pynchon wants to expose is the way we massage
>> > things into metaphor and then forget that we’ve done it.”
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > You go, Leo Robson. One of the best reviews I’ve seen.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/09/bleeding-edge-thomas-pynchon-dotcom-survivors
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> 
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