BtZ42 Read

Thu Mar 17 01:52:28 CDT 2016

A-and it's a new paragraph!

2016-03-17 1:28 GMT+01:00 Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>:

> "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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