BE groupread 2021-2 Chapter 1 - 2nd pass part 1

[Michael Bailey]

1) Pages 13-20 in the Nook edition

Published by Penguin in 2013.
There are blurbs, including nice ones from Jonathan Lethem and Michael
Dirda.

There’s a list of his other books. Bleeding Edge is number 9.

There’s an epigraph, from Donald E. Westlake: “New York as a character in a
mystery would not be the detective, would not be the murderer. It would be
the enigmatic suspect who knows the real story but isn’t going to tell it.”

Cover art is a picture of servers, right?

Then on Nook page 8 there’s a picture of the Flatiron Building, showing the
distinctive skinny end of it. With the lit buildings all around, there’s a
lot of similarities between that and the cover photo.
Apotheosis of “circuit board” comparison from CoL49? But the focal point in
the city photo is the unusually shaped building, which has no counterpart
in the server room shot.
It may be meant to connote something; my guess is how human architecture
prizes oddball variances in a way that computers do not.



2) Location NYC, upper West side
Time frame: first day of spring, 2001. Tuesday, March 20th.


After the epigraph, to segue into the text one might almost expect NYC to
be in the first paragraph. But it’s not.
However, the Upper West Side makes it into the 2nd paragraph, so the nose
of the camel that is New York, New York, inserts itself in the tent flap of
the story on the first page.

Tuesday, March 20th, was the 3rd Tuesday of Lent that year.







3) Maxine walks her two sons, Otis and Ziggy, to (private) school. (As
Hubschräuber suggests, the name Ziggy may be fraught with meanings.
The name Otis suggests elevators. Also maybe Otis Redding.)

So we know she’s well-to-do and not egalitarian to the point of insisting
on public schools.

The walk is interesting. I’ll delve into that (and her surnames) on the
third pass, grid willing.

But the image I carried away most strongly was Maxine taking a whole half
minute to gaze at a pear tree after drawing her sons’ attention to it,
while they keep walking.

They - particularly Otis - still share her vision for “a minute” - which,
even if it’s a New York minute, is a good bit of time to pause on a New
York sidewalk, so -

an inevitable loosening of the mother-child bond is evident in Pynchon’s
verbiage with, “Yes, maybe they’re past the age where they need an
escort….”

- but it’s still pretty strong, this tells me.

And to heed Joseph’s call for ignoring the usual “no spoilers” credo, I see
this as one end of the frame tale for the entire story.

But also - and I think this is relatively cool - ok, massively cool - it
hearkens back to V. where there’s this parable about birds eating from a
pear tree and becoming too fat to fly. Which works both ways - imho -
I like the BE treatment better because it’s a beautiful moment. But the
Pynchon of V. was no slouch either.

So refracting back, the older author paints a tree and a bright moment; but
devotees might note that Maxine could stand in peril of falling victim to
the gluttony/greed/Mammon of her times, or at least is spellbound by the
beauty of the here naturalistically depicted (but formerly, in the oeuvre,
tagged as an almost Dantean trap, symbolic) pear tree - while  her kids
walk on, not as captivated, toward their own encounters with the fruits and
the traps of life.

But she catches up with them pretty quickly.





4) Backstory of school’s founder, Otto Kugelblitz.

Expelled from Freud’s inner circle for his own heretical formulation:
stages of life each contain a variety of madness which only resolves into
sanity at life’s end.

A) Kugelblitz is German for “ball lightning” which features in AtD. I’d
like to relate that to something plotwise. Any ideas?

B) Kugelblitz’s idea would not sit well with Freud because it implies
shifting definitions of what to expect, thus complicating analysis. It also
deflates the notion of sanity as something to strive for.

And the school employs even finer definitions of evolving craziness,
allowing them to set differing norms for each grade.
This is both a resoundingly silly idea and fairly close to a workable
pedagogy, isn’t it?

The school got opened because Kugelblitz received financial help from
numerous wealthy New Yorkers who’d been his patients in Depression times.

Maybe Kugelblitz’s personality more than his philosophy was the key: “…the
fancy-schmancy social occasions he found himself at increasingly…” (15) -
people liked him, which is all kinds of therapeutic.
He was able to transcend the doctor-patient relationship.

 “Whatever Kugelblitzian analysis was doing for their brains, some of these
patients were getting through the Depression nicely enough to kick in
start-up money after awhile to found the school, and to duke Kugelblitz in
on the profits, plus creation of a curriculum in which each grade level
would be regarded as a different kind of mental condition and managed
accordingly. Basically a loony bin with homework.”

a) is anyone else wondering about “plus creation…” as to the antecedent?
Is the creation of the curriculum another thing Kugelblitz is being duked
in on?
Or is it another one of the things the wealthy patients were getting
through the Depression nicely enough to kick in for?
Or should someone have challenged TRP on this? Where is the Cork Smith of
today?

b) Maybe there is so much purport here that it boggles syntax.
In a nutshell: as wealthy people find solace in personally friendly
therapists who let them feel they deserve their material success even if it
may be contributory to societal malaise, and dissociate from “melting
pot/commonwealth/noblesse oblige” ideas to the point of founding a private
school based on somewhat nihilist principles, we count on the geniality of
educators (and the resilience of
kids) to recast educational and social outcomes more favorably than one
might expect.

And it does in BE (another spoiler)

After all, Pynchon did opt for private schooling - unlike Louie in the
eponymous sitcom (who’s a good bit less unsavory than his creator)
insisting his kids go public.






5) (Maxine) Meets up at the school with a friend, Vyrva.

She walks through the crowd (this is so refreshing compared to the lines of
cars picking up and dropping off at more benighted jurisdictions.)

Nods to Principal Winterslow, whose white suit and Panama hat make me think
of Colonel Sanders, or maybe Burl Ives.

Vyrva calls out to her in a West Coast laid-back manner, prompting Maxine
to reflect on the social norms prevalent in the Upper West Side,
specifically relating to hurry and efficiency, and their application in a
sometimes punitive way. No examples, though. This theme of social control
among the well-to-do pops up again, iirc.

However, Vyrva is able to obtain a variance, it seems, for her more mellow
composure.



6) Maxine agrees to take Vyrva’s daughter, Fiona, later that day while
Vyrva goes to an appointment.

Maxine likes the idea, anticipates the request, and accedes to more than
Vyrva requested.
Have her stay the night!

7) Already I like Maxine.
She’s an observant pedestrian, a good friend, likes kids, and does a bit of
wool gathering as she goes.
Solvitur ambulando.