M & D Group Read (cont)

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, I noticed that--Castles-- during the last almost line by line read I
did. Not the Trial so much.  I have come to speculate that

K's Castle might be TRP revisioning The City on a Hill loaded with
narrative symbolism of the US, esp the last line of wikipedia's summary
here.

*The Castle* (*German <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language>: Das
Schloss* German pronunciation: [das ʃlɔs]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Standard_German>; also spelled *Das
Schloß*) is a 1926 novel <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel> by Franz
Kafka <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka>. In it a protagonist
known only as K. arrives in a village and struggles to gain access to the
mysterious authorities who govern it from a castle. Kafka died before
finishing the work, but suggested it would end with K. dying in the
village, the castle notifying him on his death bed that his "legal claim to
live in the village was not valid, yet, taking certain auxiliary
circumstances into account, he was permitted to live and work there." Dark
and at times surreal <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism>, *The
Castle* is often understood to be about alienation
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_alienation>, unresponsive bureaucracy
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucracy>, the frustration of trying to
conduct business with non-transparent, seemingly arbitrary controlling
systems, and the futile pursuit of an unobtainable goal.

Them Jesuits.

On Wed, Jan 10, 2018 at 1:26 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Speaking of influences, homages, ancestries, reincarnations: I’m struck
> again—mentioned it in one post but it may deserve repetition and
> elaboration—at how much Kafka I see around here, these first ~150pgs or so.
> (Which is not always the case with my experience of Pynchon.) I believe at
> least three mentions of a/the Castle. The mass hypnosis. The folly that is
> not quite mirthless, but is still kind of askew—amok—and horrifying. The
> way there is madness that happens not center stage, maybe not even properly
> on the stage at all.
>
> On Jan 10, 2018, at 12:03 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This. I see Sterne everywhere in Pynchon, above all in their shared
> conviction that digression and chronological skipping-about are truer to
> our inner life than linear narrative. Cherrycoke is only P's most overt
> tribute to that influence. I'm curious: does Sebald ever sound Sternean to
> you, as he does to me?
>
> The timing is apt, too: Tristram Shandy came out in volumes between 1759
> (Rebekah's death; Sterne's mother died and his wife was dangerously ill)
> and 1767 (end of the Line; Sterne's meeting with Eliza, muse for A
> Sentimental Journey and the Journal).
>
> Plus... just *look* at the guy. How can a Pynchonian not love a great
> comic writer who so resembles Harpo Marx?
>
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Draper#/media/File:
> Laurence_Sterne_by_Sir_Joshua_Reynolds.jpg
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Draper#/media/File:Laurence_Sterne_by_Sir_Joshua_Reynolds.jpg>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 10, 2018 at 11:08 AM, Thomas Eckhardt <
> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>
>> Cherrycoke always brings to my mind that other irreverent clergyman,
>> Lawrence Sterne. If I am not mistaken, Sterne also would have been
>> addressed as the Reverend.
>>
>> Am 10.01.2018 um 16:28 schrieb Joseph Tracy:
>>
>>   I would be interested to hear how others hear or listen for Ccoke’s
>>> voice.
>>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>
>
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