Copellia

[Martha Rooster-Singh]

Thank you.


On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 5:21 PM, <malignd at aol.com> wrote:

> Also, recommend Helen Simpson, the reviewer.  Getting a Life, is the one I
> know, stories, which are very good.  Particularly like Burns and the
> Bankers (I think that's right ...).
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martha Rooster-Singh <martharoostersingh at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, Jan 1, 2014 1:33 pm
> Subject: Re: Copellia
>
>   Femme fatale
> A darkly erotic reworking of Bluebeard's Castle, a bawdy Puss in Boots and
> a sado-masochistic version of Little Red Riding Hood - Angela Carter's
> subversive take on traditional fairy stories in The Bloody Chamber is as
> shocking today as when the collection first appeared in 1979, writes Helen
>  Simpson
>  http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jun/24/classics.angelacarter
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 12:37 PM, Martha Rooster-Singh <
> martharoostersingh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  In the great author's latest novel he sends his brave protagonist out
>> to Montauk  where, in the middle of protected wildlife sanctuaries, in and
>> around, and even under Camp Hero, Gabriel Ice has a castle under
>> construction.  As she makes her way down a confidential space that resists
>> analysis, her antennas, now stiff with the hairspray that Oedipa never put
>> on or took off, are filled with radio traffic, numerals and NATO phonetic
>> letters. More Mondaugen's sferics? The ghosts of murdered Africans? A
>> poetry he can't comprehend. Not literally. Grover with his ham radio? The
>> cries of his robot boy, the Black boy Carl Barrington, constructed from the
>> car parts and junk that the society wastes and piles in the junk yard, the
>> garbage tossed on the lawns to terrorize the childless Black couple, the
>> Jazz man's nightmares and the the desperate schemes of the boys who try to
>> save themselves from the bomb plots and fallout shelters their  parents
>> have given them. Here, Maxine is a double fallout shelter. One, the Cold
>> War shelter, now a tourist attraction, MAD in the new frontier, the other,
>> Ice's Castle under construction. Privacy for the billionaire plutocrat
>> welcoming the Void.
>>
>>   page 193
>>
>>  P drops the clue: Bluebeard's Castle. Not a tip of the cap to Kurt
>> Vonnegut here, but an Opera.  So the psycho-sexual journey.
>>
>>  The other opera, always connected with this one, has to do with a
>> wooden prince, made of flesh, made wood, then flesh again.
>>
>>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wooden_Prince
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 10:59 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> I'm always interested by how damn often in the human (at least
>>> western) imagination we imagine our creations will rebel against us
>>> eventually. Robots, especially - it's as if we're sure they'll try to
>>> kill us all as soon as they're smart enough to think like us. Really
>>> neurotic of humans to project that onto something that doesn't even
>>> exist yet, I reckon.
>>>
>>> Has extra connotations for the US, given that it's a creation that did
>>> (successfully) rebel against its creator.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 2:55 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > I guess the most important aspect of all of this neo-human engineering
>>> is
>>> > that deus ex machina. Even so benign a being as Slothrup might cost
>>> you your
>>> > balls.  The Creation often confounds The Creator, but only because of
>>> the
>>> > Creator's willfulness.  This is also the story of Faust:  willful self
>>> > creation via artificial means.  Both the same cautionary tale.
>>> >
>>> > David Morris
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Tuesday, December 31, 2013, David Morris wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> P knows his Freud, and he knows opera.  He is well versed in automata
>>> and
>>> >> Frankenstein, as well as the golem,  He hasn't done clones yet...
>>> >>
>>> >> Clone Returns Home (2008)
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> http://variety.com/2008/film/reviews/the-clone-returns-home-2-1200472620/
>>> >>
>>> >> Trailer:
>>> >> HKAIFF 2009 - 複製人懷鄉曲 The Clone Returns Home - trailer
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> On Tuesday, December 31, 2013, John Bailey wrote:
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Yeah, Coppelia is based on ETA Hoffmann's short story The Sandman,
>>> >>> which was the major text Freud used to explore his theory of The
>>> >>> Uncanny (and good stuff on voyeurism and castration). Very
>>> influential
>>> >>> story and essay. Dunno if P read either but I've never been able to
>>> >>> read V. without seeing them everywhere in the novel. V is the human
>>> >>> who transforms themselves into an object, and makes real the horror
>>> >>> implicit in the ballet (it's more obvious in the story, which doesn't
>>> >>> have a happy ending.)
>>> >>>
>>> >>> On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 9:12 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>> > Watching the movie Tetro, a scene from the ballet Copellia, the
>>> broken
>>> >>> > doll,
>>> >>> > is portrayed. I'd never heard anyone mention the ballet in V. In
>>> light
>>> >>> > of
>>> >>> > Copellia, which seems so obvious to be its reference.
>>> >>> >
>>> >>> >  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copp%C3%A9lia
>>> >>> >
>>> >>> > Coppélia concerns an inventor, Dr Coppelius, who has made a
>>> life-size
>>> >>> > dancing doll. It is so lifelike that Franz, a village swain,
>>> becomes
>>> >>> > infatuated with it and sets aside his true heart's desire,
>>> Swanhilde.
>>> >>> > She
>>> >>> > shows him his folly by dressing as the doll, pretending to make it
>>> come
>>> >>> > to
>>> >>> > life and ultimately saving him from an untimely end at the hands
>>> of the
>>> >>> > inventor.
>>>   -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>
>>
>>
>
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