calculated madness on the way to the transit of Venus-

[jochen stremmel]

Is there anybody who doesn't love that book?

2015-01-28 2:45 GMT+01:00 alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>:

> oh, and RPM. He faked madness to get out of work at the prison farm.
> He took the boys fishing, like Jesus. Was he crazy? Was the world?
> Chief was nuts. Wasn't he? Joseph, ever read OFOTCN? Bet you would
> love that book.
>
> On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 8:40 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > There is so much madness, accusation of madness, feigning of madness,
> > allusion to the causes of madness, cures for madness,  and parody of
> > the traditional causes and cures  of madness, of the ship of fools...
> > and so on that a reader begins to feel as though she's sailing away on
> > Hamlet's Flying Cuckoo's Nest.
> >
> > Is this all method acting? Pynchon messing with his critics who say he
> > can't make lifelike characters? I'll show you. I can do madness.
> >
> >  Surely much madness here is divinest sense if we can make something of
> it.
> >
> >  There must be, in all this madness, a method in it.
> >
> > Grant is mad; he is suffering from too much time on land and now that
> > he's finally got his sea legs and a horse, the last nag in the barn,
> > he's gonna ride.
> >
> > The kid who gives him the orders is a fool. Grant is mad with taking
> > orders from young fools.
> >
> > Old salts, old soldiers, old carpenters, old people who have seen a
> > lot and have to take orders from young fools who have more power often
> > employ the madness method. After so many years of whatever it is
> > they've been doing they are, some say, burnt out, or mad, or maybe
> > only half faking the madness to keep the young power trippers at arms
> > length. Doesn't always work when masts and mastheads and ladders and
> > scaffolds are part of the job. Things slip, get dropped.
> >
> > There is a risk to playing mad. Hamlet kills the wrong man. Ends up
> > dead. His girl goes mad for read and ends up dead.
> >
> > A parody of the revenge tragedy is Hamlet. Maybe M&D is parody of all
> > the madness ever staged.
> >
> > I see that Mason has a Ramadan in remembrance of his wife's departure.
> >
> > Queequeg is married to Ishmael.
> >
> > But Ishmael is not dead.
> >
> > http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-dick/662/chapter-17-the-ramadan/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >  will discover soon enough that men like Grant are mad enough and it's
> > best to let them alone.
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 27, 2015 at 4:54 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
> wrote:
> >> Perhaps the “Advantage” to being thought perhaps insane is that it
> keeps your company off balance  - you’re possibly dangerous - who knows
> what you’ll do given the right prompt?  Folks are careful around other
> folks who are so unpredictable as the insane.
> >>
> >> As for not opening the message until they get to Tenerife,  it has the
> the eastern destination noted.  It’s possible that if some of the crew knew
> this destination early they might not sail - or the captain might sail away
> elsewhere.  (Or it might be a power-trip on the part of the powers-that be.)
> >>
> >> Bekah
> >>
> >>> On Jan 27, 2015, at 9:52 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> "At this turn in his Life, Capt. Grant has discover'd in his own
> feckless Youth, a Source of pre-civiliz'd Sentiment useful to his Praxis of
> now and then pretending to be insane, thus deriving an Advantage over any
> unsure as to which side of Reason he may actually stand upon."
> >>>
> >>> What is this "Advantage"? For the "pre-civiliz'd" there is an
> association with madness and divinity/the spirit world/second sight/hidden
> powers.  This shamanic  advantage may trace to the claimed divinity of
> rulers, to simple fear reinforced by social and technical powers, and may
> have a modern global role as M.A.D.  But my first thought was that it lines
> up with Pynchon's role as captain of his literary enterprise: part shamanic
> lightning rod, part  traveler through a world he did not create, part
> godlike creator of something always simultaneously both imaginary and real.
> >>>
> >>>   The captain is self aware and affably sensitive to the fact that
> respect for his authority is a kind of negotiated magic that has to make
> sense to the crew and the superstitions and practicalities of seafaring.
> >>>
> >>> This magical aspect of commanding a ship is set against the imperial
> mechanics of orders to be opened at Tenerife. Why? Is he supposed to take
> them to a naval post to witness the proper timing of the opening. What
> would keep him from opening them as soon as the messenger leaves. Are they
> fucking with his head the way he is with his crew to keep the lines of
> power clear?
> >>>
> >>> -
> >>> 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/?listpynchon-l
>
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