M&D - Chapter 19-21 - The Father

[Jerome Park]

Fin de siècle social mobility is even appropriated by Thomas Pynchon in
Against the Day (2006), his own turn−of−the−century novel written at the
turn of a subsequent century. One of the numerous subplots involves the
possibility of marriage between the old−money Yashmeen Halfcourt and the
nouveau riche Cyprian Latewood, "his family only a generation on from
socio−acrobatic aggrandizement" (549). When the topic is broached, a
character answers: "'As in Latewood's Patent Wallpaper? Surely not'" (548).
Pynchon is obviously revisiting Howells. Silas Lapham becomes the
linguistically−similar Cyprian Latewood, and paint is transformed into
patent wallpaper [page 266](both are used to cover and decorate walls). Of
course, Pynchon twists the signifiers into his own peculiar and amorphous
shapes. The relevant characters' genders are reversed, and their ethnic
backgrounds are murky; he also complicates matters by referring, with
respect to the characters' physical relationship, to bestiality, sodomy and
the man's ambiguous sexuality. Ironically, and comically, he injects
greater realism (albeit peppered with absurdity) into Howells's
ur−narrative, though Howells was of course obsessively devoted to realism.
Pynchon is suggesting that, despite Howells's apparent dedication to a new
kind of fiction detached from its romantic antecedents, "realism" had a
long way to go before it became convincingly real. The fiction of Howells's
day was overly genteel, he is suggesting, with much of the important,
realistic action (sex, for instance) taking place off the page or not at
all. Pynchon is portraying the discrepancy between a writer's ideals and
his books, an issue I will also explore in greater depth momentarily.

http://www.connotations.uni-tuebingen.de/madigan01913.htm

On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 8:36 PM, Jerome Park <jeromepark3141 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Why that turn in the common phrase? So Pynchon writes that Mason "invested
> Precious Sleep" and don't we expect that Mason *Lost* or *Wasted* or
> *Spent* Precious *Time* and not that he Invested Precious Sleep. Mason did
> not invest Time or Money. Time is money and money time. But Sleep is
> Precious and is invested when one loses it, wastes it, spends it by not
> sleeping. Hamlet would like this riddle. Had he, when a child who posed
> questions about the World wasted his father's time/money? What good the
> education the Father spent his time/money on if the Son can't explain the
> the theft of days to the boys in the Pub?
>
> The Theory of the Leisure Class
>
> AND
>
> What Money Wants.
>
> http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=21847
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 6:43 AM, Elisabeth Romberg <eromberg at mac.com>
> wrote:
>
>> There is a bit of role reversal at the bottom of page 191, betwixt Mason
>> and his father.
>> «He now began to quiz himself insomniac with this, wond’ring if his
>> father had struggled thus with Mason’s own earlier questions about the
>> World. He invested Precious Sleep in the Question, and saw not a Farthing’s
>> Dividend"»
>>
>>
>> > 30. mar. 2015 kl. 20.48 skrev Elisabeth Romberg <eromberg at mac.com>:
>> >
>> > This chapter is a real close up on Mason. From the shoe-buckle to
>> internal dialogue and memories of his father.
>> > On page 191 there are two hints that lead us to think Mason
>> (regularly?) took a beating from his father, right?
>> >
>> > But Leather and Bone? Should it not’ve said Leather and Flesh?
>> >
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
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