How Pynchon once mistook a virus for a metaphor

Thu Mar 19 12:22:08 UTC 2020

"Intimate third person" -- that is a very good description.

Ray

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 8:18 AM Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> It’s very good -  the 1st two in the trilogy could be important to read
> prior to this third one.  The book takes focus because of the intimate 3rd
> person. (I guess that’s what you’d call it.) There are so many Thomases and
> Marys -  Oh my but that was life I guess.
>
> Bekah
>
> > On Mar 19, 2020, at 3:57 AM, Thomas Eckhardt <
> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> >
> > Re "The Mirror and the Light".
> >
> > I haven't yet started reading in earnest but the opening --
> >
> > "Once the Queen's head is severed, he walks away. A sharp pang of
> appetite reminds him that it is time for a second breakfast, or perhaps an
> early dinner."
> >
> > -- sounds promising.
> >
> >
> >
> > Am 18.03.2020 um 20:08 schrieb Becky Lindroos:
> >> Hey Laura, thanks,
> >>
> >> I don’t have deliveries but I’m doing pretty well. I’m trying to look
> out after myself - keep self safe, etc.  My good neighbor/buddy took me to
> the ER and stayed there with me last night.  My cleaning lady checks on me
> regularly.  But I took myself to the market pharmacy this morning to get
> new Rx’s and a few extra goodies mostly because I was really curious about
> the situation.  I’m always pretty well stocked without being a prepper.
> >>
> >> Thank you for asking -  :-)
> >>
> >> Btw, I’m reading the new biography,  Mr Putin by Fiona Hill (of
> Congressional Hearing fame) and Hilary Mantel’s 3rd in her Thomas Cromwell
> series,   They’re both quite good although the bio can get a wee bit boring
> at times,
> >>
> >> Becky
> >>
> >>> On Mar 18, 2020, at 10:47 AM, Laura Kelber<laurakelber at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Yikes, Becky. Please take care of yourself. Can you get food/medicine
> deliveries where you live?
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 12:38 PM Becky Lindroos<bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
> >>> Gag re the Orange Pustule, Laura - yep.  I forget that I’m 72 and not
> in great health and my kids worry as they live half way across the
> country.  I also have friends here who check on me.
> >>>
> >>> Soooo…..   I was in the emergency room last night (8 hours!) and I had
> a mask because I had symptoms (BUT my symptoms were stomach flu and
> dehydration).  Most others - (the non-patients) did not have masks. Generic
> corona-virus testing was somewhere else and the tent for determining that
> was outside the hospital doors. .  ??? -
> >>>
> >>> Fwiw,  I had lung surgery in September (I don’t know if I mentioned
> that prior) and although I’m pretty well recovered I’m still weak -
> vulnerable.  It was stage 1 cancer.
> >>>
> >>> Becky  - a Boomer who will not be Removed -
> >>> So be safe - keep me safe!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On Mar 18, 2020, at 8:46 AM, Laura Kelber<laurakelber at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> And, on cue, there goes the Orange Pustule referring to coronavirus
> as the
> >>>> Chinese Virus.
> >>>> My favorite name for it so far: the Boomer Remover.
> >>>>
> >>>> Laura, age 62
> >>>>
> >>>> On Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 9:14 AM Erik T. Burns<eburns at gmail.com>  wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> the Spanish Flu is relevant also because it didn't start in Spain;
> it was
> >>>>> called the Spanish Flu because Spain was one of the few countries
> that was
> >>>>> reporting on it truthfully, the others were hiding the pandemic to
> maintain
> >>>>> wartime morale. no one really knows where it started; it might have
> been
> >>>>> Kansas (as per *wikipedia*<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
> >)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 1:06 PM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> >>>>> lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> The concrete sentence from "Entropy" goes like this:  "Not even the
> >>>>>> clean constant winds of Switzerland could cure the GRIPPE ESPAGNOLE:
> >>>>>> Stravinsky had had it, they all had had it". Oh well ...
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> " ... Though it may not be wrong absolutely to make up, as I still
> do,
> >>>>>> what I don't know or am too lazy to find out, phony data are more
> often
> >>>>>> than not deployed in places sensitive enough to make a difference,
> >>>>>> thereby losing what marginal charm they may have possessed outside
> of
> >>>>>> the story's context. Witness an example from 'Entropy.' In the
> character
> >>>>>> of Callisto I was trying for a sort of world-weary Middle-European
> >>>>>> effect, and put in the phrase GRIPPE ESPAGNOLE, which I had seen on
> some
> >>>>>> liner notes to a recording of Stravinsky's L'HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT. I
> must
> >>>>>> have thought this was some kind of of post-World War I spiritual
> malaise
> >>>>>> or something. Come to find out it means what it says, Spanish
> influenza,
> >>>>>> and the reference I lifted was really to the worldwide flu epidemic
> that
> >>>>>> followed the war.
> >>>>>>    The lesson here, obvious but now and then overlooked, is just to
> >>>>>> corroborate one's data, in particular those acquired casually, such
> as
> >>>>>> through hearsay or off the backs of record albums ..."
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Slow Learner (Introduction)
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> Pynchon-L:https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Pynchon-L:https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Pynchon-L:https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >> --
> >> Pynchon-L:https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>