M&D Deep Duck 4-6: Yet another reason M&D starts at sea

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 28.01.2015 19:28, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

> Pynchon's navy experience was obviously a formative one, given how much ships are used as plot devices, or at least referenced, in his books. So many ripe connections and metaphors. Or is it all about Moby Dick, Alice?
>
> Ships in his other books (please add to this list!):
>
> V: Profane's a Navy man, and there are multiple shipboard scenes.
>
> COL49: Mike Fallopian's recounting of a naval encounter between Russian and American ships. More on this from Martin Eve:
>
> http://www.academia.edu/1037657/Historical_Sources_for_Pynchons_Peter_Pinguid_Society  
>
> GR: Well, the Anubis, of course, and the hijacked U-boat, the toilet ship.
>

Then there's the vessel of Frau Gnahb:

"'please, mother,' silent otto plaintive in the window of the pilot 
house. in reply the good woman commences bellowing a bloodthirsty ~ sea 
chanty ~ i'm the pirate queen of the baltic run, and nobody fucks ~ with 
me--- ~ and those who've tried are bones and skulls, and lie beneath ~ 
the sea. ~ and the little fish like messengers swim in and out their 
eyes, ~ singing, 'fuck ye not with gory gnahb and her desperate ~ 
enterprise!' ~ i'll tangle with a battleship, i'll massacre a sloop, ~ 
i've sent a hundred souls to hell in one relentless swoop--- ~ i've seen 
the flying dutchman, and each time we pass, he cries, ~ 'oh, steer me 
clear of gory gnahb, and her desperate ~ enterprise!' ~ whereupon she 
grips her wheel and accelerates." (pp. 497-498) ~~~ [copied this from 
the archives, I have no idea why I didn't use caps back then.]

Regarding the name Gnahb, Steven Weisenburger notes that it is "a 
backward spelling of 'bhang'" (Hindu term for marijuana), --- I do hear 
echoes of the name Ahab, too.

> Vineland: Well, not much other than a reference to Zoyd working a cruise gig for Kahuna Airlines.
>
> ATD: The SS Stupendica sequence, and the Airship.
>
> IV: the Golden Fang
>
> Laura
>
> BE: If I remember, there's a little scene on a ferry boat.
>
> -
> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
>

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