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

Mark Kohut mark.kohut at gmail.com
Thu Jan 29 18:58:19 CST 2015


p. 45 near the bottom....a reduction of possibilities....where did we
read that before?....in the words on the cattle drives that reduce
choice and possibility as they are led into the slaughterhouse in AtD
is one place.                   Cf. "single up all lines"

in a book on Finnegans Wake, the curse of the Kabbalah is said to be
that it makes mankind 'fearful and dependent"....see lines above these
on p. 45
'the curse of Kabbalah, the root source of the reduction of human
possibilities"----same book..

On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 7:44 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> pp 44-45.." 'Terrible, well, as to 'Terrible'..." And what they cannot
> speak, some of it not yet, some of it never,  resumes breathless
> Sovereignty in the wax-lit Rooms.
>
> Death......in the equivalent of the Drawing Rooms....
>
> Cf. "whereof what one cannot speak, one must pass over in
> silence"---Wittgenstein (Although he meant something different than
> Death, which 'was not an event in life", he said.)
> And Mrs. Dalloway.....how dare they talk about death at my party--paraphrase.
>
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 1:12 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
> <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>
>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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