AtD translation: his skepticism, which was seldom being addressed these days

[Mike Jing]

Thanks for the reply, Mark and David.

On Sat, May 22, 2021 at 12:58 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Cyprian's skepticism was "seldom being addressed these days," so he
> wondered if it might be losing its edge. Presumably he was now mostly
> listening to more "true-hearted" hymns these days than he was used to.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Sat, May 22, 2021 at 2:35 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> 497.33   Cyprian stood in the evenings, at the Compline hour, just outside
>> the light cast from the chapel windows, and wondered what was happening to
>> his skepticism, which was seldom being addressed these days except by such
>> truly horrible specimens as the Te Deum in Commemoration of the Khaki
>> Election by Filtham, which—although in the hymn-writing trade botching a
>> Te
>> Deum is thought to be next to impossible, the psalmodic formulæ being well
>> established, even unto what notes to end on—nonetheless, from its
>> stultifying length, in arguable violation of any number of child-labor
>> statutes, as well as a relentless chromaticism that might have made even
>> Richard Strauss uneasy, too “modern” to have retained any power to
>> penetrate and sacredly stun, it was already known among schoolchild
>> choristers from Stain-drop to St. Paul’s as “Filtham’s Tedium.”
>>
>> Why is his skepticism only being addressed by these "truly horrible
>> specimens"? Are these the only ones he gets to listen to regularly? Since
>> they lack the "power to penetrate and sacredly stun", I assume they can't
>> really make him any less skeptical.
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>