M&D Chapter 12 - pages 118-119

Heikki R situations.journeys.comedy at gmail.com
Mon Mar 2 01:05:42 CST 2015 

Heh,

thanks, Alice. I wouldn't advise anyone to read this piece I wrote 21 years
ago. Anyway, should someone really want to take a look at it, here's a
formally enhanced version:

http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/text-only/issue.197/raudaskoski.197

(I dimly recall that I made some changes to the content too. Have mercy on
the young me, guys. I don't think I was interested in genre theory per se.
Rather, in the Bakhtinian sense, "epic" vs. "novelistic" thrusts within
GR.  And: what should have been "American Tragedy" turned out as "American
Dream" in the article... Believe me, I *was* thinking of the former when I
wrote it.)


Heikki




On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 2:04 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
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