Group Read

[Monte Davis]

Full agreement as far as the first read goes, Mike. Later, though -- I
won'rt repeat some posts on the Seven Years War (locally for USAns, the
French & Indian War) from the last year or so, but perhaps worth tucking
away:

1) As M&D themselves discover at sea, it was a *world* war. Most of it was
in Europe, India, the Caribbean islands, and at sea, with the North
American part a comparatively minor theater... even if it led, unplanned,
to (1) control of Canada, (2) newly confident and uppity colonies along the
Atlantic seaboard, and (3) indirectly, French disengagement from the
Mississippi-Missouri basin that would become the Louisiana Purchase of
1803. USAn readers naturally think it's all about us, but IIRC at the time
of the war of independence the UK's trade with the Caribbean sugar islands
was several times that with all the about-to-be-US colonies together.

2) The British Empire emerging in the mid-1760s was not just much larger,
but very different -- in organization and in Britons' attitudes toward
their place in the world -- from what it had been for the previous ~150
years. Much about it was new to M&D and their contemporaries. In some ways
they have more in common with Slothrop in an about-to-be-Americanized
Europe, or the 1950s USN sailors in the Mediterranean in V., than with
Godolphin and Porpentine, or the Foreign Office mandarins in AtD.

On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 1:13 PM, Mike Sauve <mpsauve at gmail.com> wrote:

> This is a huge overgeneralization, but the whole pre-America portion is
> the most forgivable during which to suspend the "why" question. It's also
> when it will come up the most, but upon first read, unless you're the type
> to research and make notes of every page for that kind of
> comprehension--it's this part you can just let wash over you, enjoy the
> repartee, the jokes, etc. The East India Company and Clive of Fucking India
> and all that is contextually important, but if you're not 100% clear on the
> forces at work in the beginning, know that the narrative gains a far
> greater cohesion and clarity once they reach the good old US of A.
>
> On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 10:08 AM, L E Bryan <lebryan at sonic.net> wrote:
>
>> I seem to always get stuck on “WHY?” questions.
>>
>> But, of course there is that favorite advent section of GR with Roger and
>> Jessica. I read it out loud to my friends - when I have any that will
>> tolerate my idiosyncrasies  - or just to myself around this time of year.
>>
>> Lawrence, who started M&D again, last night…
>>
>>
>> > On Dec 21, 2017, at 2:08 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Simple banal observation which, like everything in this great writer,
>> > can lead to good discussion:
>> >
>> > V and M & D begin in winter, near Christmas. Seemingly P's favorite
>> holiday.
>> >
>> > True? and why?
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
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