M& D Group Read (cont.)

[Jochen Stremmel]

"Compared to Lot"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCDMQqDUtv4

Have a nice weekend,

J

2018-01-20 9:43 GMT+01:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:

> Compared to Lot 49,with the possible conspiracy the virtual plot of the
> book thru to its open ending and GR with the
>  paranoia embodied directly in the text as that missile always
> descending.....
>
> M & D seems a very different book.
>
> Begins and ends with unparanoic happiness (of course undercut by
> realities in the text's
> historical awareness,
> most real AND symbolically, slavery) and no
> proveable textual longitude line of paranoia, so to speak. ....
>
> M & D wondering who might be controlling them is the major counter pull on
> that argument and one reading I keep having is Emerson's line:
> "Things [meaning economics] are in the saddle and ride mankind."
> Or, less ambiguously but vector-like real and symbolic, the East India
> Company and the Government ,of course, globalizing their
> and everyone's working asses.
>
> Per Thomas reminding us of the great Hofstadter perspective on the Jesuits,
> I think that within M &D the conspiracy theory involving
> them is mostly TRP showing here how America was born and made full of
> conspiracies. Esp from the Right, arguably, per Hofstadter,
> as the Right is always disbelieving in reality.
>
> On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 10:02 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In my reread of M&D thus far it seems that paranoia is emergent even
> > (because of course) in colonial times, and yet the “civilized” people are
> > increasingly finding themselves shuffled to and pursued into new
> frontiers
> > of unknowability. Who sends them? Who chases? Not always clear.
> >
> > But then someone must be behind it all, no? Surely people are profiting
> > off, eg, all this slavery. People are making decisions. Or are they?
> >
> > I think M&D broadens the conspiratorial view out of just the
> > history-making animal’s historical brain and into its interaction with
> the
> > physical spaces around those brains.
> >
> > There’s a lot going on with (possibly natural laws of) urbanity and
> > density and geography (and madness?). Even if you can ascend the chain of
> > conspiracy and continue arriving at Christian-named conspirators, they
> > themselves are just conspired *through* by forces more superhumanly
> > powerful than even They are.
> >
> > On Jan 17, 2018, at 5:31 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Ah, the conspiracy of the separate snippet when everything doesn't
> connect.
> >
> > Lensing quoting Wood BOTH love M & D to the skies. The snippet is part of
> > an argument that
> > the conspiracy (of History) framework of GR (and Vineland?) are Gone,
> gone
> > as gone girls in Mason & Dixon.
> >
> > Mich Wood's over-the-top rave for Mason & Dixon was in Raritan, a review
> > with a thematic reading, not just
> > 'full, rich characters and terrif prose":
> >
> > In his detailed review "Pynchon's Mason & Dixon" (Raritan, 4, 1998,
> > 120-130), Michael Wood first discusses the book's intentional
> > aimlessness, then takes up differing reviews of Louis Menand and James
> > Wood. Next he fixes upon the choices between "wonder" and "care," and
> > determines that the novel is "about learning, rather slowly, to care
> > instead of wonder." He next discusses Cherrycoke' snarratorrole and
> > characterization of Mason and Dixon, Pynchon's use of bantering prose ...
> >
> > Now discuss THIS.
> >
> > extra credit: Tanner's book on American Literature written before M & D:
> > The Reign of Wonder.
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 4:52 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Howdy,
> >>
> >> I haven't read the article but a little research shows that the fellow
> >> was not exactly specialized in reading Pynchon. I won't say more because
> >> the poor guy died very young so he's not around to argue. However, the
> one
> >> Pynchon book that Michiko K. thought was good was M&D, so he took a
> pretty
> >> difficult position to argue. I find the book to be masterful in its
> >> narrative construction and structure. J. Wood slagged it off but he's a
> >> wanker who used to be keen on Pynchon, enough so to put him on a top 100
> >> list years ago. Doesn't talk about that now, does he?
> >>
> >> mc
> >>
> >>
> >> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_
> source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Libre
> >> de virus. www.avast.com
> >> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_
> source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
> >> <#m_-6578288459285765196_m_-7817204502463804204_DAB4FAD8-
> 2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jan 17, 2018 at 7:06 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> As Michael Wood writes of* Mason & Dixon. *"No overarching conspiracy*,
> >>> *or even the steady suspicion of one, unites the
> >>> unravlled strands of this book" ---essay* Postmodernism at Sea*, Dennis
> >>> Lensing in Hinds' book.
> >>>
> >>> Discuss.
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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