Also Ch 10, the appearance of the inverted star

[David Ewers]

Amen to allah this!

On Feb 22, 2015, at 9:12 PM Jolly good day we are having, Becky Lindroos wrote:

> On Feb 22, 2015, at 7:51 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>> 
>> This chapter contains the first appearance of the ominous inverted star and it is associated with  armed vigilante racism, the iron  fist inside the age of reason and freedom.-
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> 
> Yes,  thank you,  Joseph - I have a feeling that’s kind of important.   I mentioned that in Chapter 10,   but it was at the end of the page 101 post and my comment was really, really brief - too brief.   Here's a picture of the inverted star: 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inverted_pentacle.PNG
> 
> 
> And here’s a bit more (and this is pretty good): 
> From     https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/77/165  - 
> (and then click pdf or html - I did it - it’s fine - an Orbit site - 
> 
> “Something More Than a Rifle”: Firearms in and around Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon"
> by Umberto Rossi  (Independent Researcher) 
> 
> The gun appears when the effects of the transit begin to fade away; when “Masters and Mistresses resume the abuse of their Slaves, […] [r]iding in and out of Town now may often be observ’d White Horsemen, carrying long Rifles styl’d ‘Sterloops,’ each with an inverted Silver Star upon the Cheek-Piece” (101.10). No doubt the image of the armed White Horsemen suggests several ideas: the threat of violence, colonial domination, a hint at the four horsemen of the Apocalypse (one of whom does ride a white horse [Revelation 6:1-2]). As for the inverted star, it is—according to Éliphas Lévi, the 19th Century occult author and magician—a symbol of evil and black magic (Lévi 69). The surrealistic “summer of love” of 1761, plus the Biblical and magic symbolism may well induce readers to think that the Sterloop rifle is no more than one of Pynchon's inventions, like the Trystero or the Chums of Chance.
> 
> The essay goes on with more info from Chapter 34 (Pennsylvania)  where Mason and Dixon “ev’ry now and then” see a rifle with an inverted star - the sterloop and all it could mean.     Rossi’s article  has about a full page on it. 
> 
> Becky 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I copied what I said below - also,  the graphic of what is called an “inverted pentacle.”  
> 
> "Riding in and out of Town now may often be observ'd White Horsemen,
> carrying long Rifles styl'd "Sterloops," each with an inverted Silver Star
> upon the Cheek-Piece."  (p. 101)
> I think “Sterloop” means “star loop” in English - 
> http://mymemory.translated.net/t/Dutch/English/what-is-ster--loop
> 
> I think for Americans this "White Horsemen with Rifles"  will have
> resonance of the KKK,  and Pynchon is American and this is an American novel
> and I suspect this is deliberate -  so -  why is it there?
> https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/77/165
> 
> Both inverted stars and “sterloops”  come up again much later in the novel.
> 
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l