BtZ42 Read

Wed Mar 16 19:28:18 CDT 2016

"Sausages hang against the Sky, forming Lines of Text, cryptick Intestinal
Commentary."

Essence of Pynchon there: comic-grotesque and over the top at first sight
-- and taking on seriousness, even poetic force as you move on to the next
sentence, pulling you back... godDAMN, how did he do that?!?!?

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 6:12 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> If we're bringing in the opening of chapter 2 of AtD here, then
> there's a direct connection there with chapter 29 of M&D:
>
> "Cities begin upon the day the Walls of the Shambles go up, to screen
> away Blood and Blood-letting, Animals' Cries, Smells and Soil, from
> Residents already grown fragile before Country Realities. The
> Better-Off live far as they may, from the concentration of Slaughter.
> Soon, Country Melancholicks are flocking to Town like Crows, dark'ning
> the Sun. Dress'd Meats appear in the Market,— Sausages hang against
> the Sky, forming Lines of Text, cryptick Intestinal Commentary. The
> Veery Brothers, professional effigy makers, run an establishment south
> of the Shambles at Second and Market Streets, by the Court House.
> Mason, in unabating Search after the Grisly, must pay a Visit.
>
> "Can't just have any old bundle of Rags up there, even if 'tis meant
> to be burnt to ashes, can we," says Cosmo, "— our Mobility like to
> feel they're burning something, don't you see? Oh, we do Jack-Boots
> and Pet¬ticoats, bread-and-butter items the year 'round, yet we strive
> for at least the next order of Magnytude...."
>
> "Here, for example, our Publick Beheading Model,— " adds his brother
> Damian, "or, 'the Topper,' as we like to call it, Key to ev'rything
> being the Neck, o' course, for after you've led them up to the one
> great Moment, how can you disappoint 'em wiv any less than that nice
> sa'isfy-ing Chhhunk! as the Blade strikes, i'n't it, and will pure
> Beeswax do the Job? No,— fine for the Head and whatever, but look what
> you've got to chop at,— spine? throat? muscles in the neck? well,— not
> exactly Wax, is it? So it's on with the old Smock, lovely visit next
> door, scavenging among th' appropriately siz'd Necks for bones and
> suet and such. Then it's up to the Kiddy here to cover it all over and
> give it a Head with a famous, or better Infamous, Face. He's a rare
> Wax Artist, our Cosmo is. Likenesses almost from another World,
> perhaps not a World many of us would find that comfortable. Products
> of the innocent Hive, Sir, and beneath, the refuse of the daily
> Slaughter, yes there you have it, a grisly Amalgam, perhaps even a
> sort of Teaching,— sure you'd enter any dark-en'd Room our lads and
> lasses happen'd to be in, only upon ill advice indeed."
>
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 2:53 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That opening scene in GR, a dream from below, a subconscious point of
> > view, as it begins with a scream above, in the sky, and then the focus
> > remains on what is above from the perspective of one who is below, the
> > emotions, fear and anxiety caused by what is above and what will fall
> > on those below, then the movement, and it is a narrowing and a drive
> > deeper below. I think the elevators take the evacuees down, not up,
> > down and away from any possibility of light, of salvation, of being
> > heard, even if they scream.
> >
> > Now P made a book into a film recently, or somebody did it with his
> > OK, and it is, far as I know his first major film, but he worked on
> > film in his youth as I recall reading that at Cornell he was part of
> > some little film project or other. In any event, the young P is said
> > to have had an interest in making opera or space opera....but what
> > strikes me here again as I re-read this opening passage is how keen P
> > seems to be to make a movie. The camera position here that is the
> > dream of Pirate is from below to above.
> >
> > The one in Chapter 2 of AGTD is from Above to what is Below and there,
> > it is not humans but cattle that are rushed through the Cartesian grid
> > to the killing floor.
> >
> > There are parallels.
> >
> > The WWII camera, some fixed to airplanes, others handheld down into
> > tunnels, some in balloons.
> >
> > The little commentary in both passages suggest the use of film,
> > photography. The colors, the hues, the light or the dark room. all
> > kinda hint at P the fil maker.
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> >> Nicely argued.
> >>> On Mar 16, 2016, at 9:39 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Doesn't this opening remind anyone of the opening to Chapter Two of
> >>> _Against The Day_?
> >>>
> >>> The imagery in _AGTD_ may be a poaching parody, of Upton Sinclair and
> >>> others of the period, as McHale argues, and following that analysis we
> >>> should look for film parody and poach here, but here in this opening
> >>> of GR,  I am inclined to read this opening a not a parody or a poach,
> >>> but as the imagination of a writer who has been influenced, as
> >>> critical studies argue, by everyone and everything, but who has hit
> >>> his stride and is writing in a style that is rightfully and especially
> >>> his own. The anxiety of influence, so glaring in all previous works is
> >>> ground to dust. Though Mumford and Dickens and Orwell echo here, in
> >>> the imagery, Pynchon has a style all his own and what a style it is.
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 8:11 AM, Ray Easton
> >>> <raymond.lee.easton at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>> I loathe statements about literature of the form "it feels to me
> like..."  (
> >>>> pace, Mark -- not aiming at you, but only at myself! ), but I do have
> to say
> >>>> that some of what follows after the dream "feels to me like" the
> beginning
> >>>> of Ulysses.  Felt so my first reading and has every time since.
> >>>>
> >>>> I cannot figure out why, though -- and the why is what matters.
> >>>>
> >>>> Sent with AquaMail for Android
> >>>> http://www.aqua-mail.com
> >>>>
> >>>> On March 16, 2016 6:37:02 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Distinct feeling of Mulligan at Ulysses opening now that you mention
> it.
> >>>>> Wholly changed but in comic tone and meaning
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 4:02 AM, Ian Livingston <
> igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> And the first rebirth is a Pirate, followed by Bloat.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> “There are proceedings of such a delicate nature that it is well to
> >>>>>> overwhelm them with coarseness and make them unrecognisable; there
> are
> >>>>>> actions of love and of extravagant magnanimity after which nothing
> can be
> >>>>>> wiser than to take a stick and thrash the witness soundly…“
> Nietzsche, BG&E,
> >>>>>> 29.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> And what is Pirate‘s relation to Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus,
> >>>>>> anyway?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>> -
> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
> >>
> >> -
> >> 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/?listpynchon-l
>
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