mauve

[Thomas Eckhardt]

> 2017-03-21 13:13 GMT+01:00 Kai Frederik Lorentzen 
><lorentzen at hotmail.de>:
> 

>> Actually science - meteorology and astronomy - is the 
>>target of the first
>> paragraph's irony in *Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften*.

One of the targets. The other one is the convention of 
opening a novel with a description of the weather.

Here is the paragraph in question, as copied from a blog 
post referenced before:

"A barometric low hung over the Atlantic. It moved 
eastward toward a high-pressure area over Russia without 
as yet showing any inclination to bypass this high in a 
northerly direction. The isotherms and isotheres were 
functioning as they should. The air temperature was 
appropriate relative to the annual mean temperature and to 
the aperiodic monthly fluctuations of the temperature. The 
rising and the setting of the sun, the moon, the phases of 
the moon, of Venus, of the rings of Saturn, and many other 
significant phenomena were all in accordance with the 
forecasts in the astronomical yearbooks. The water vapour 
in the air was at its maximal state of tension, while the 
humidity was minimal. In a word that characterizes the 
facts fairly accurately, even if it is a bit 
old-fashioned: It was a fine day in August 1913."

http://www.buenosairesreview.org/2015/02/the-marquise-was-never-content-to-stay-at-home/
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l