M & D Deep Duck Read. Pop quiz

Tue Jan 6 14:17:50 CST 2015

Good stuff. A possibly countervailing sidelight: as a child I read few
comic books and (after age 10 or so) watched little TV animation, but some
of their appeal must have lurked until I looked at Japanimation over my
sons' shoulders in the 1990s. I've happily binged on Cowboy Bebop, Neon
Genesis Evangelion, Mushishi, TekkonKinkreet, Attack on Titan, Steyns;Gate,
and  love Miyazaki even more than classic Disney -- all of which are as
juvenile/adolescent as can be, but fresh and interesting to me because of
the different cultural seasoning. It's very specific -- I have no broader
penchant for either traditional or modern Japanese culture.

Maybe a phenomenon like the "British invasion" of 1960s rock, which was
mostly our own R&B / boogie / soul / electric blues coming back at us in
Merseyside and East End accents?

And maybe in M&D, we should be alert not just for signs of incipient
American-ness, but for deep old British-ness -- Blake's Albion, not George
III's United Kingdom -- that appears fresh and strange to Chas and Jer
because of its new setting?

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 2:38 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ah, I knew my early morning improvised offhand mention of movies would
> be challenged. I thought I might have to argue
> that, well, Pynchon watches comics, and he does.
>
> 1st, you and I Monte have agreed on the selection effect in the past.
> I do not think it applies against my remark--which
> was lame and should have been much fuller--and I will fill it out. In
> fact, I think your presentation of what you (and others--like me)
> might watch makes my case in a way. Becasue you choose not to be
> immersed (with your essential sensibility) in the wide-spread
> "juvenile"---I now like 'adolescent" better and shoudl have used that
> word---culture, you are seeing it too, no?
>
> I was saying it pervades the America we know. I was thinking of how
> whole huge industries, such as Hollywood, see it and help create it.
> Publishing too, altho it is
> not huge but it plants those cultural seeds. I should have talked
> about, for example, how many adults we all know defend reading and
> rereading YA books; about how many
> women our age and younger think their 'men' are overgrown boys (a
> cultural trope fer sure). i am talking about video games; yes, and
> also those action and overgrown boys-as-men
> with superskills action movies.
>
> What is most important in my remarks about this in M &D is that I
> never contrasted Cherrycoke's 'storytelling art' with some higher
> artistic period.No Golden Age against the present (of the novel) day.
>  In fact, my
> judgment of one major part of Pynchon's meaning here is that EVEN THEN
> we, as a generalized nation, wanted our history told as adventure to
> adolescents, he is always saying. I was
> a--glow with this new-to-me (In M &D) possible theme. It is there fer
> sure in AtD, yes?
>
> That 'adolescent' cultures are what many--most--all-- cultures'
> stories are, is probably true but again, does not work against---he
> takes the trope global, universal in AtD! ---but here it is
> about incipient Americans. Then
>
> And now. (Romance as a genre, P's kind of loose, associative symbolic
> fictions, veer toward, like a controlled balloon, finding mythic
> patterns.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 10:55 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > MK>...but haven't we all felt that so much that happens in American
> society,
> > in its movies, etc. is........juvenile in its
> > appeal?
> >
> > Yes, but at least some of that comes from seeing it all. This American
> tends
> > to see only the most acclaimed Swedish and Japanese movies, read only the
> > most acclaimed Nigerian and Pakistani books -- not the far more numerous,
> > run-of-the-mill offerings that are, I'm sure, the despair of elite
> Swedish,
> > Japanese, Nigerian and Pakistani cultural consumers.
> >
> > The selection effect works in time as well as space. Many laments about
> mass
> > culture, about the decline of art and taste since [insert Golden Age
> here],
> > tell us only that educated people have encountered the classics
> surviving --
> > by definition --  from earlier eras, not the clunkers everyone has
> > forgotten. As you know better than I, Mark, the best-seller lists -- and
> > even the high-culture award lists -- of bygone times yield many WTF?!?
> > moments.
> >
> > Maybe most of most cultures everywhere and everywhen is "juvenile"
> because
> > "mature" -- aka elite -- culture requires both the opportunity and the
> > desire to continue exploration, education (institutional or
> autodidactic),
> > and reflection beyond adolescence.
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 7:25 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Wonderfullll!....psychometrist, a devolution?--Pynchon's usual way
> >> with descendants--from storyteller of adolescent psychology.
> >>
> >> Which leads me to THIS: The Rev is telling this story to entertain three
> >> kids!
> >> (He must or they will stop him). So, an exciting plot-drive story.
> >> full of 'Crimes!" shout the boys.
> >> Wanting their Youthful conceptions---their
> >> stereotypes--"Frenchwomen!", their boyish, uneducated (much)
> >> desires and lusts.......slated.
> >>
> >> I, for one, have long thought America as a generalized sensibility, is
> >> adolescent in essence. (Real cultural commentators
> >> have made this point, from whom I've got it, of course, but haven't we
> >> all felt that so much that happens in
> >> American society, in its movies, etc. is........juvenile in its
> >> appeal?) I suggest TRP is putting that down as
> >> well.
> >>
> >>
> >> So, I am reminded of the adventure stories that are The Chums of
> >> Chance's adventures. Special Operations Executive...an
> >> echo---foreecho?--of the Special Operations of the Chums?
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 5:59 AM, Elisabeth Romberg <eromberg at mac.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> > According to Joakim Sigvardson <<(t)he Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke is
> >> > possibly
> >> > a forefather of Ronald Cherrycoke (...) in (GR). The latter is a
> <<noted
> >> > psychometrist>> (p. 146), a spiritual medium employed by the
> >> > Psychological
> >> > Intelligence Schemes for Expecting Surrender at the White Visitation,
> >> > (...) on
> >> > the coast of Southern England. The White Visitation was formerly a
> >> > mental
> >> > hospital but when Ronald Cherrycoke and PISCES inhabit it during the
> >> > (WWII),
> >> > it is part of the Special Operations Executive."
> >> >
> >> > Source: Immanence and Trenscendence in Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon,
> >> > published by Stockholm University, 2002, p. 81.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Also, could the 'omnipresent narrator' be Tenebrae somehow?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > 6. jan. 2015 kl. 02.35 skrev John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>:
> >> >
> >> > Ooops, reply all.
> >> >
> >> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >> > From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
> >> > Date: Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 12:35 PM
> >> > Subject: Re: M & D Deep Duck Read. Pop quiz
> >> > To: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > I always thought it was Roland. Huh.
> >> >
> >> > Shades of Ronald McDonald mixed in with Coca-Cola? Hardly positive
> >> > associations in a P novel.
> >> >
> >> > One is ostensibly a man of God, another a man of medicine, but unless
> >> > I'm mistaken neither is particularly faithful to their role. They're
> >> > both kind of hucksters, kind of woo woo, kind of jokers, right?
> >> >
> >> > Although inspired by the discussion of wood in the first chapter,
> >> > maybe the coke in Cherrycoke could be read as the combustible fuel
> >> > coke. So it's like cherry tree wood used for burning purposes. A slow
> >> > burning wood according to the great lord google.
> >> >
> >> > Goes with Wicks and also Tenebrae (and I swear I went down a
> >> > rabbit-hole during my first read regarding names and light-sources in
> >> > M&D).
> >> >
> >> > On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 12:23 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> >> > wrote:
> >> >
> >> > what is the relation of Rev Cherrycoke to Ronald in GR?, that is why
> >> > did P echo the name? Cherrycoke, Ronald
> >> >
> >> > 125; psychometrist in Psi Section; 146; "undertakes. . .trips into
> >> > Nora Dodson-Truck's void, " 150; "in a Jesus Christ getup" 639
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 4:36 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Hello back, David! That dovetails with my view that Cherrycoke is
> >> > Pynchon's
> >> > stand-in - Pynchon once young, wayward and reclusive, now that nigh
> many
> >> > years have come and gone, drawn inward to the family hearth to tell
> >> > stories.
> >> > Not that different from what he's doing (as omniscient narrator)in
> >> > Inherent
> >> > Vice - telling stories of his youth from the new perspective of family
> >> > man.
> >> >
> >> > Laura
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > -----Original Message-----
> >> >
> >> > From: David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net>
> >> > Sent: Jan 5, 2015 4:01 PM
> >> > To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >> > Cc: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> >> > Subject: Re: M & D Deep Duck Read. Pop quiz
> >> >
> >> > Hello,
> >> > Thanks for setting up this group reading.  This will be my second
> >> > reading of
> >> > M-&D- (my first was when it came out) but my first time publicly
> >> > discussing
> >> > it (or any Pynchon book, for that matter...), so I beg your pardon in
> >> > advance for my hamfistedness.
> >> > I was wondering about the Cherrycoke frame as well.  Are there other
> >> > Pynchon
> >> > books that start this way, looking back from a comfortable future?  I
> >> > can't
> >> > think of one.
> >> > If  Cherrycoke is a stand-in for Mr. Pynchon, could the framing have
> >> > something to do with the idea I've read (eavesdropped) here, that
> >> > Pynchon
> >> > started M-&D- many years earlier, set it aside to do other things
> >> > (Vineland?), and returned to it later from a different place in a
> >> > different
> >> > America?  In M-&D-, there's the twenty year span from the tale (1766)
> to
> >> > the
> >> > telling (1786).  It seems to me that those years fairly well match
> with
> >> > the
> >> > twenty years Rip Van Winkle slept; also roughly the years from
> Gravity's
> >> > Rainbow to M-&D- (...when we all slept?).  I'm not sure how fruitful
> it
> >> > is
> >> > to draw too many autobiographic connections, especially when there's
> so
> >> > much
> >> > rich stuff to dig around in here, but I figure I'd throw it out there.
> >> >
> >> > On Jan 5, 2015, at 10:54 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >> >
> >> > A + +
> >> >
> >> > Why did he not have Cherrycoke tell it all, ya think? and.... that old
> >> > modernist staple [started with The Good Soldier] of
> >> > ye unreliable narrator......wha?
> >> >
> >> > p. 8 "stoven, dismasted, imbecile with age---an untrustworthy
> >> > Remembrancer [see---all on the surface]
> >> > for whom the few events yet rattling within a broken mamory must
> >> > provide the only comfort no remaining to him,---
> >> >
> >> > On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 1:27 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > All I see is the Omniscient Narrator handing off to Cherrycoke here.
> Are
> >> > you
> >> > talking about the book as a whole, or just this section?
> >> >
> >> > Cherrycoke is a stand-in for Pynchon himself, perhaps? Family outcast,
> >> > paid
> >> > money to keep away? Well, no. But famous reclusive, one-time writer of
> >> > something labeled "obscene," long-time bachelor, no real job other
> than
> >> > being a highly-paid (relative to most working drones) writer, now
> >> > ensconced
> >> > solidly within a family setting and telling a tale.
> >> >
> >> > LK
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > -----Original Message-----
> >> >
> >> > From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> >> > Sent: Jan 5, 2015 1:00 PM
> >> > To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >> > Subject: M & D Deep Duck Read. Pop quiz
> >> >
> >> > Who is narrating?, or should that be Who are narrating?
> >> >
> >> > And what does that imply, maybe, in various ways, about the tale?
> >> >
> >> > 25 words or fewer..
> >> > -
> >> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >> >
> >> > -
> >> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > -
> >> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > -
> >> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >> >
> >> > -
> >> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >> >
> >> >
> >> -
> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >
> >
>
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