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

Fri Nov 5 16:50:17 UTC 2021

I like the WIRED's praise and positioning.

On Thu, Nov 4, 2021 at 11:39 PM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>