M&D Chapter 12 - pages 118-119

Sun Mar 1 18:04:20 CST 2015

So, we might use theory to read GR. Doing so doesn't prove anything.
Theory is not proof. But it will certainly provide a method of
analysis that will, while limiting in some respects, enhance our
reading of GR.

For example,

"The Feathery Rilke Mustaches and Porky Pig Tattoo on Stomach": High
and Low Pressures inGravity's Rainbow

Heikki Raudaskoski, University of Oulu, Finland

 http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/gr/finnished.html

On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 6:56 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Genre is theory and like all theory it does not limit the truths we
> may discover in the reading of a book or in all of nature. So, genre
> theory doesn't limit the truths we may discover.
>
> But genre theory, and all theory, is conscious of its limitations, and
> it is in this awareness of its inadequacies that theory helps us
> attain a truth in a particular discipline or from a particular
> perspective.
>
>
>
>
> 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