BtZ42, p.17: sandbagged

[Mark Kohut]

Ish,

This connection interests me too. Never connected the 'not in any
guidebook"
with not being on any map but, yes, that seems quite right to me.

yes, this 'sacred place' is "off the official war routes"..."where the
typewriters pause
(at mythic times)" ..."and "there are no flights of American bombers in the
sky" and
even motor traffic--this consequence of modernity---not too heavy.....so

there are birds and feeders....a little nature w birds and nice girls who
build feeders for them.

A refuge from War, from the Siege and, if my reading of it as a place for
human 'gods',
then it is a subverted, humanistic, Eliadian Sacred Place, very
thematically in keeping.
A place off all maps where preterites go/live, survive.......

yes, as Smoke sez, there are other places like this hidden in plain sight
(but some 'buried'
like this one you've uncovered, so to speak and there are even more of
them, maybe, in
Against the Day.

Wow, nice. Thanks.







On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 9:04 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> 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 <smoketeff at gmail.com> 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 <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> 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 <brook7 at sover.net>:
> >>
> >>   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 <kbob42 at gmail.com> 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 <fqmorris at gmail.com> 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 <fqmorris at gmail.com> 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 <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> 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/?listpynchon-l
>
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