Re: Mike Jing question on Cyprian’s skepticism

[Raphael Saltwood]

“Addressed” isn’t ordinarily synonymous with “aroused.”

But in this case, I think it’s as if to say
the music doesn’t address (or “call to” or “direct itself at”) the spot where his cynicism resides

Instead addressing a different place in him where a different emotion resides

“Pressing that button” instead

In Pointsman’s terms, the same stimulus induces a different response (-;

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________________________________
From: Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2021 2:26:34 PM
To: Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>
Cc: pynchon-l <Pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subject: Re: Mike Jing question on Cyprian’s skepticism

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<mailto: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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