BtZ42, p.17: sandbagged

Sun Apr 3 20:19:37 CDT 2016

The point that--I poorly paraphrase--the stars and map correspond to some terrain or world that is not exactly what we think of as the real (/physical/conscious/ad mortem) world is a good one, I think. 

P. 275 Pointsman: "'we admit that the early data seem to show,' remember, _act sincere_, 'a umber of cases where the names on Slothrop's map do not appear to have counterparts in the body of fact we've been able to establish along his time-line here in London.'"

The notion of framed/bound images containing an image of or acting as a sometimes permeable doorway to a different world--deeper one? An internal one--feels archetypal. I guess that's maybe just because that's what art is. 

> On Apr 3, 2016, at 11:57 AM, <kelber at mindspring.com> <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> 
> The whole experience of reading the book is an exercise of being lost in space and time. Where are we? When is this? What don't I know that I should know? Is this real? If it's a dream, whose dream is it?
> 
> It's an interesting point that (I think) Ish made about the stars (as opposed to pins) being a clue to the reader that this isn't a real map, in the conventional sense.
> 
> Some thoughts on the stars (I've lost the thread where they were originally discussed - sorry!): Those tiny, multi-colored, gummed stars being back memories of kindergarten - I can actually remember how they smell. Their usage: atta boy/girl! However tiny they are, they still splay over a larger area than those punctilious government-issue pins. The pins tell us: the bomb dropped right here. The stars tell us: something happened, sort of over here. Bloat's superiors have decided not to worry about the different colors. They're not interested in what happened, just where. 
> 
> Slothrop's use of stars instead of pins might be his own way of telling Death to fuck off. Something fun happened here. Atta girl!
> 
> LK
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Keith Davis 
> >Sent: Apr 3, 2016 11:22 AM
> 
> >
> >- Is it too/also unmappable? Is the Slothropian map in the
> >unmapped building a guide to reading, to the reader?
> >
> >There's no straight path through the forest.
> >
> >Www.innergroovemusic.com
> >
> >> On Apr 3, 2016, at 9:04 AM, ish mailian wrote:
> >> 
> >> The passage and pyramid parenthetical has been abused by Gore Vidal
> >> who contrasts Pynchon with Joyce.
> >> 
> >> The grammar of GR, the hysterical comic book and cartoon grammar makes
> >> a stodgy grammarians scream.
> >> 
> >> But it attracts others who see his style of disconnectedness as
> >> rhetorical and satirical.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Those interested should see "Hysteron Proteron in Gravity's Rainbow,"
> >> Steven Weisenburger, and his book Fables of Subversion, and more
> >> extensively A Hand to Turn the Time, Kharpertian's book.
> >> 
> >> What interests me too is the guide book that the building is not mentioned in.
> >> 
> >> Why not say it was a small building with no real historical significance?
> >> 
> >> The building is not simply contrasted with the famous Grosvenor, but
> >> is said to be too insignificant for mention in any guidebook. Any? Is
> >> it on a map? Is it too/also unmappable? Is the Slothropian map in the
> >> unmapped building a guide to reading, to the reader?
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >>> On Sat, Apr 2, 2016 at 4:15 PM, Smoke Teff wrote:
> >>> Grammatically, would we say "indeed" is affirming the curiosity? Would we
> >>> say the curious things are the gods or the gods' offspring?
> >>> 
> >>> I think this maybe should be chased after, then understood, in reverse. What
> >>> is being affirmed. What is curious. Who are the gods' offspring. Then who
> >>> are the gods. Then how do the pyramids gratify them. At one point does the
> >>> parallel stop referring to the sandbags and start referring to the pyramids
> >>> we know. What is the exact operation of the Metaphorical RNA here.
> >>> 
> >>> Ultimate gut instinct about where he's taking us is to maybe point to or at
> >>> least nod at some unexpected and disturbing ways--like bugs underneath a
> >>> log--that contemporary "secular" human society/thought/war, differs from and
> >>> (maybe more troublingly, for us mortals) resembles our ancestors. More
> >>> religious though we think they might have been. Maybe it questions human
> >>> progress.
> >>> 
> >>> On Apr 2, 2016, at 11:03 AM, Jochen Stremmel wrote:
> >>> 
> >>> I'm with John here: as Egyptian pyramids are for the dead mostly mentioning
> >>> gods seems to imply rather Mesoamerican pyramids.
> >>> 
> >>> 2016-04-02 17:48 GMT 02:00 Joseph Tracy :
> >>>> 
> >>>> That was my first impression, conveys endurance like a pyramid, really a
> >>>> apile of sand similar to a house of glass already referenced. Also there is
> >>>> the similar connection to some pharoah-like power, some god-man that is the
> >>>> identity of those who serve.
> >>>>> On Apr 2, 2016, at 12:07 AM, Keith Davis wrote:
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> How about that the sandbags, stacked up like pyramids, give the illusion
> >>>>> of protection, enough to satisfy the folks inside, stupid humans, descended
> >>>>> from gods, who would accept the comfort of this alleged protection, putting
> >>>>> out of mind that any bomb could fall on them at any moment?
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Www.innergroovemusic.com
> >>>>> 
> >>>>>> On Apr 1, 2016, at 10:22 PM, David Morris wrote:
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> I would say that this narrator's insights re. pyramids and gods are
> >>>>>> meant to be prompts for the reader's own thoughts, a way of getting buy-in
> >>>>>> to the proposed paranoia. The reader is being overtly recruited into a
> >>>>>> paranoia.
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> David Morris
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> On Friday, April 1, 2016, David Morris wrote:
> >>>>>> Too fragmentary for any deep diving, unless linked to other parts of
> >>>>>> the text. The spiritual references are playing against what Bloat can't feel
> >>>>>> at all, so the narrator is feeling the aura in his stead, which would then
> >>>>>> include pyramids, etc.
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> David Morris
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> On Friday, April 1, 2016, Monte Davis wrote:
> >>>>>> On the way into ACHTUNG:
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> "... a certain desperate aura here. But Bloat, going in the sandbagged
> >>>>>> entrance (provisional pyramids erected to gratify curious gods’ offspring
> >>>>>> indeed), can’t feel a bit of it..."
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/men-resting-on-top-of-piles-of-sandbags-wwii-london-4-september-1939-picture-id102729664
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> Help me out with that parenthetical description. "Provisional," sure --
> >>>>>> these aren't for the ages, just for the V-weapon Blitz 2.0. But what's
> >>>>>> Egyptian about it? Who are the curious (and is that 'peculiar' or
> >>>>>> 'inquisitive'?) gods... let alone their offspring? What desire is being
> >>>>>> gratified? And why that "indeed," as if this were reinforcement or
> >>>>>> confirmation of something stated or questioned earlier?
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> 
> >>>>>> I get an echo of p. 9, where the men crushing ice against the concrete
> >>>>>> Jungfrau were "wasted gods urging on a tardy glacier." But it's a faint
> >>>>>> echo, and doesn't help me understand this.
> >>>> 
> >>>> -
> >>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >> -
> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >-
> >Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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