M&D Chapter 12 - pages 118-119

Sun Mar 1 16:39:01 CST 2015

I think that is more than right....why 'encyclopedic novel' , one
meaning being perhaps, a novel that is more than a novel, yes.

And, as I reread some more Shakespeare and a few other books, I am
learning and relearning how the best are
often the best because they transcend genres.....naturally-- by force
of genius....

On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 4:59 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> You and Alice and some critics want to place novels in labeled bookstore
> shelves, by category.  I understand that as a vehicle for discussion and
> comparison.  I think GR's expanse of genre referencing actively fights that
> kind of book shelving.
>
> David Morris
>
>
> On Sunday, March 1, 2015, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Becky writes:
>>
>> Maskelyne likens St. Helena to a gothic novel and says:
>> "Six months I've been here - too many idle Minutes soon pile up,
>> topple and overwhelm the Healthiest Mind."
>>
>> Maskelyne, man of science, repeats a cultural attitude more prevalent
>> among Protestants than Catholics
>> sez a Google Books search and paralleling Weber's insights it says
>> elsewhere.
>>
>> And, of course, the Gothic strain of fiction, this upcoming fiction
>> within the fiction, is a current of fearful fiction,
>> anxiety-filled (and cathartic thereby?) fiction and, even Horror
>> fiction. It might be seen as the demonic undertow
>> of fiction, the underground answer to the overground novel of manners
>> and society.
>>
>>  Austen, soon a genius of the latter, has her protagonist in the early
>> Northanger Abbey get overwrought almost hysterically at times with her
>> Gothic novel reading.
>>
>> The Gothic strain is the anti-optimism strain. The Gothic strain is
>> the Cassandra strain. Gothic is the downward pull
>> to scientific and societal 'inevitable progress. The Gothic strain is
>> the Return of the Repressed strain.
>>
>> Gravity's Rainbow is Gothic.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 12:27 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Another day,  another couple pages:
>> >
>> > Maskalyne likens St. Helena to a gothic novel and says
>> >
>> > "Six months I've been here - too many idle Minutes soon pile up, topple
>> > and overwhelm the Healthiest Mind."
>> >
>> > (A little foreshadowing there? -  Suspicions that Mason might go
>> > completely mad?  Pynchon doesn't really go in for a lot of foreshadowing to
>> > keep up suspense or whatever - just as well,  it would take the whole thing
>> > overboard, overdone, too much.)
>> >
>> > ** "Sirius Business," cackles the Proprietor. -  another groaner gag.
>> >
>> > This novel has some very serious themes, but told with a LOT of humor -
>> > not just humor to lighten the atmosphere -there's actually a comic tone.
>> >
>> > "But I also noticed that the book's  (M&D's) humor was more thoroughly
>> > interwoven with melancholy and a sense of mortality than ever before in
>> > Pynchon's work."
>> > http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/pynchon/mason.html
>> >
>> > "Mason & Dixon represents an impulse to write history through the
>> > imaginary field, to crosshatch its narrative with a realization of culture's
>> > desire to find its identity in the realm of the imagination. It thus argues,
>> > implicitly, for the importance of artistic imagination alongside scientific
>> > and historical work. Pynchon rejects the harsh realism and more cynical
>> > parodies employed by many contemporary authors, using HUMOR (my caps)  and
>> > even magic as modes of transformation.[17] Talking dogs, sexually aroused
>> > mechanical ducks, and nighttime apparitions and ghosts haunt Mason and Dixon
>> > in America; perhaps the country that combines technical invention with
>> > capitalistic enterprise might be equallymythologic in Pynchon's ambivalent
>> > history."
>> > http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.903/14.1burns.html
>> >
>> > Thoughts on the humor and how it adds to the mix of history, themes,
>> > story, whatever -  do you laugh? Why?
>> >
>> > **********
>> > And then, ta-da - it's Maskelyne's birthday - (which would tell us it's
>> > October 6, 1761 and that he's 29 years old - born Oct. 1732) and he makes a
>> > big deal of impending doom (age 30 is coming).
>> >
>> > The phrase "Stygian mists"  is from "To Chloris"  in "Madrigals and
>> > Epigrams" by William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649) Scottish poet.   a
>> > little chunk of the poem -  http://www.bartleby.com/337/285.html
>> >
>> > Mason:  (but 30 is)  "... a Number divisible,- penetrable! - by 6
>> > numbers!"    (eeks?  why?  - numerology of some kind I guess.)
>> >
>> > ***  Narrator:    "...dismal apostrophes..."    -
>> >  And in this case the word apostrophe means exclamations,  not the
>> > punctuation symbol.
>> >
>> > **** Now Dixon is leaving for South Africa to take care of Maskelyne's
>> > "Sisson instrument"  which is probably a quadrant of some sort,  a device
>> > for measuring angles.
>> >
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Sisson
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodolite
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrant_(instrument)
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural_instrument
>> >
>> >         If the measurement device is off by a hair - then that slight
>> > error is multiplied exponentially and Maskelyne has invested more than time
>> > and his career in the instrument ($$?) .  Dixon is the field rep for Johnny
>> > Bird's instruments?  -  lol - but ...
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bird_(astronomer)
>> >
>> > Why are the various measurements of time and space inaccurate?   Errors
>> > in measurement - 1.  human error - the time of the Transit (because M&D
>> > started/ stopped at different places) and, 2.  device error (plumb line
>> > screwed up on quadrant).
>> > **********
>> > Is there really so little on these two pages?    Or is this "so little?"
>> >
>> > So here's an added little morsel for the Learn'd Dogs amongst us - James
>> > Wood, in a now "classic" essay soundly criticized Zadie Smith's White Teeth
>> > for it's "hysterical realism" and lambasted a few others in the process
>> > (M&D, etc).
>> > http://www.newrepublic.com/article/61361/human-all-too-inhuman
>> >
>> > And this is a rather interesting little Wiki article on the subject:
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysterical_realism
>> > (interesting little piece)
>> >
>> > Becky
>> > the humor bit reminded me of hysterical and that took me on the little
>> > semi-side trip to Wood and Wiki -
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l