Re: Mike Jing question on Cyprian’s skepticism

[Mike Jing]

Ah, now I know why I was confused. I was going to ask about the meaning of
'addressed" here, but didn't. It looks like I got it wrong after all. Now
it makes more sense. Thank you very much for the reply.


On Thu, May 27, 2021 at 8:52 AM Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>
wrote:

> Paraphrasing:
>
> Cyprian finds himself genuinely moved by the
>
> hymns issuing from the churches on campus - his
>
> former skepticism now is aroused (addressed)
>
> only by the very worst of the worst of the
>
> church music -
>
> such as Filtham.
>
>
> All the other church music makes him
>
> sincerely worshipful. (An attitude described by
>
> Pynchon in the preceding wonderfully
>
> convoluted sentences, full of caveats
>
> and paradox)
>
>
> This foreshadows his much later devotional turn in becoming a monk, or nun…
>
>
>
>
>
> > Mike Jing 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.
> >> --
>
>
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