AtD - Chapter 27 - Section 2 (337-343): Hook deployment

[Jamie McKittrick]

Pan... Hook... seem to recall these being big names in theatre


On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 9:40 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> http://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-poets-of-tin-pan-alley-9780195074734;jsessionid=486A80F7331079AB6D5D0F7A224D6BED?cc=us&lang=en&
>
> On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 1:14 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Note that the Con often signs his acts before the hook is used to hook
> > them. So he hooks them before they get hooked. Interesting business
> > model.
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 1:07 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> Yes, of course, in the given sentence the word "Hook" (capitalized by
> >> the author) is surely the implement deployed.
> >>
> >> This literal reading, while an important first step, is just that, a
> >> step in what turns out to be, as is so often the case with Pynchon, a
> >> long and nearly exhausting series of joaks and puns and so on.
> >>
> >> In most cases, then as now, the Hook is not physically, nor is it
> >> literally, but only proverbially, as a common reference, or
> >> figuratively deployed.
> >>
> >> In a Chuck Jones cartoon, Bugs will use his cane to hook Daffy Duck,
> >> who, after ducking the deployed tomatoes and onions will be yanked off
> >> the stage only to be replaced by the ever-popular Bunny. But the
> >> cartoon works through a reversal of the figurative, so the cane or
> >> hook is there, literally deployed.
> >>
> >> But  AGTD is no cartoon. Sure, we are in Tn Pan Alley. Sure, the hook
> >> was, physically employed in the theater and so forth...
> >>
> >>
> >> But there is so much Hooking going on in this section that it seems we
> >> are meant to look closer for non-literal meanings.
> >>
> >>
> >> So, who gets hooked and who does the hooking here? And, why is the
> >> Hook fateful. Hook is a pun and title of song and the catchy catch
> >> that catches and has cat sured your tongue and your ears too, to boot.
> >>
> >> How one translates these clever puns is beyond me.
> >>
> >> Shakespeare must give translators fits and what about Chaucer whose
> >> triple pun at the tail of the Miller's Tale, where the Tally of a sum
> >> for a Tail (sex) or a Tale is measured in rhymes and sums of puns,
> >> still gets the young scholars blushing.
> >>
> >> On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Michel <bulb at vheissu.net> wrote:
> >>> '[Con McVeety] ... lurking backstage, waiting for the fateful Hook
> >>> deployment )´ p. 342
> >>>
> >>> What does 'Hook' refer to? Makes no sense to, right now, Pynchonwiki
> has
> >>> nothing yet on it...
> >>>
> >>> Michel.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> -
> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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