BtZ42 pages 116-121

[Mike Jing]

Here's the OED entry.

surf-rider, n.

Now chiefly arch.

  A person who surf-rides; a surfer.

1851   H. T. Cheever Life in Sandwich Islands iii. 42   The great
crested wall..is every moment impending over one, and threatening to
bury the bold surf-rider in its watery ruin.
1882   Hawaiian Almanac 52   At one time they sent their champion
surf-rider to compete with chiefs in the sport at Hawaii.
1938   Life 7 Feb. 41/2 (caption)    Long regular combers, formed on a
gradually shelving beach, are a surf rider's dream of paradise.
1999   H. Turtledove Walk in Hell (2000) xvi. 465   The surf-rider,
who came up onto the beach with the plank on his head, was a couple of
inches above six feet.

On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 4:33 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kenneth Burke via Susan Sontag:
> "Completely inside his own enthralling way of unpacking a text. He spent
> almost a year with the class reading Conrad’s Victory word by word, image by
> image. It was from Burke that I learned how to read. I still read the way he
> taught me."
>
>
> P. 116 "surfriders on the combers of morning"......[a comber, a long sea
> wave]...so simply lyrical with a simple perfect analogy....
>
> interesting that he chooses the word surfrider. First, it is the earliest,
> almost archaic way, as such compound nouns usually move
> to split themselves, as this word was doing,  might have done, by the time
> of GR even. (Anyone have OED access?). Almost any uses now, according to
> Google's
> N--Gram are as "surf rider," the natural way it is suggested via prompts as
> well. But surfrider to me seems somehow better,
> suggesting in itself in one word the image of what a surfer does. (more low
> explication, God help us)
>
> He used a couple such compound nouns early in V, I remember.
>
> And, the word or phrase has not lasted, it has been wave-buried by "surfer".
>
> On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 6:29 AM, Eileen Pierce <eileenpierce333 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> They’ve cut Slothrop loose again, he wanders, seeking places the followers
>> might not follow.  Released from St. Veronica’s, he is reunited with Darlene
>> from St. Veronica's.  Then tea and candies with Mrs. Quoad.  (Ha!)
>>
>> "The Meggezone is like being belted in the head with a Swiss Alp.  Menthol
>> icicles immediately begin to grow from the roof of Slothrop’s mouth.  Polar
>> bears seek toenail-holds up the freezing frosty-grape alveolar clusters  in
>> his lungs.  It hurts his teeth too much to breathe, even through his nose,
>> even necktie loosened, with his nose down inside the neck of his olive-drab
>> T-shirt.  Benzoin vapors seep into his brain.  His head floats in a halo of
>> ice.”  (Wow.)
>>
>> Slothrop in bed with Darlene, “hunting across the zero between waking and
>> sleep”.  Mrs. Quoad is in the parlor dreaming of the King’s hand on her
>> neck.  (Huh?)  Rocket and erection.  All the while, watched from behind the
>> orange shade.
>>
>> Thank you p-listers for this fascinating group read.  I look forward to
>> reading your thoughts on this section.  Enjoy the day!  e
>>
>>
>> Eileen Pierce
>> 608-512-6451
>>
>>
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
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