BEg2 chapter 17 Montauk, Time Travel, and Republican Sin

[Mark Kohut]

"Time travel, as it turns out, is not for civilian tourists, you don’t just
climb into a machine, you have to do it from the inside out, with your mind
and body, and navigating Time is an unforgiving discipline. It requires
years of pain, hard labor, and loss, and there is no redemption—of, or
from, anything."

THIS: a distillate spin on one aspect of all the time stuff in AtD:
And I can’t help but think Pynchon is also referring to the only form of
time travel we have: aging..."

On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 8:26 AM Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
wrote:

> I've been dealing with a few personal time-consuming things, but now
> trying to get back into the group reading! In fact, two weekends ago I
> drove out to Montauk and rented a place just off the beach—rates are pretty
> low in January, and the place was a ghost town. I had been there many
> times—I used to go fishing off the coast—but I haven’t been there for
> years, and I wanted to walk around the places Maxine discusses—the
> lighthouse, what is now Camp Hero, etc. It was sufficiently bleak, just me
> and a bunch of surfers in wetsuits. Sadly, no traces of Gabriel's mansion,
> and even more sadly, no Reptoids.
>
> Anyway—yes Joseph! This passage deeply intrigues me. It's one of the
> places in BE where the supernatural seems to bleed through into the normal
> world. Very "Against the Day," to me, like those cave goblins. When I read
> it, I get the sense that there is definitely some lingering *presence*
> there...also connected to whatever haunts DeepArcher and the Dark Web, etc.
> But like so much in Pynchon, it's never really explained or resolved.
> (Which is not a complaint.) So yeah, what did Maxine see? As I have said
> before, the world of BE is not our literal world. It's not as "fictive" as
> M&D or AtD, but still.
>
> And regarding the time travel. While that obviously links to the
> conspiracy mythology surrounding Montauk, this passage from Chapter 22 is
> one of my favorites in the book:
>
> "Time travel, as it turns out, is not for civilian tourists, you don’t
> just climb into a machine, you have to do it from the inside out, with your
> mind and body, and navigating Time is an unforgiving discipline. It
> requires years of pain, hard labor, and loss, and there is no
> redemption—of, or from, anything."
>
> And I can’t help but think Pynchon is also referring to the only form of
> time travel we have: aging...
>
> As for this passage:
>
> "it’s all converging here, all Long Island, the defense factories, the
> homicidal traffic, the history of Republican sin forever unremitted, the
> relentless suburbanizing, miles of mowed yards, contractor hardpan,
> beaverboard and asphalt shingling, treeless acres, all concentrating, all
> collapsing, into this terminal toehold before the long Atlantic wilderness.”
>
> I take that as 100% literal—Republicans. That's how Americans use the
> term; nobody here, especially in New York, refers to Americans as
> "Republicans" in general with a capital-R, like Irish Republicans, for
> instance. However, while I agree with Joseph that the Democrats share mush
> guilt re: defense factories, etc., (1) I still read this narration as being
> "influenced" or semi-representing Maxine, and many New Yorkers I know are
> really blind to Democratic sin; and (2) Long Island is a Republican
> bastion, so perhaps Pynchon literally means the inhabitants themselves?
> Especially given the suburban riffs.
>
> —Quail
>
>
>
> On 2/4/22, 3:38 PM, "Pynchon-l on behalf of Joseph Tracy" <
> pynchon-l-bounces at waste.org on behalf of brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>     Am I right that this encounter in the passsage from Ice's cellar is
> the first time Maxine has seen something that may be a ghost or spirit? We
> know she has some fairly reliable sensitivities and extra-logical modes of
> getting information like the writing on bathroom walls. Mostly she seems
> down to earth, a careful observer, and not likely to let her imagination so
> completely take over. Later she has other encounters which also imply other
> dimensions.
>       My thinking is that Pynchon includes these coexisting dimensions as
> matter of fact parts of his constructed world and lets the reader decide
> what they mean.  What he doesn’t do is restrict such encounters to flaky
> characters. He seems to present them more as common experiences, not easily
> dismissed as completely imaginary or unreal.
>        The idea of depth seems important to Pynchon and is heavily used in
> all his work. This encounter takes place in a cellar facing down some
> stairs in the depths of Ice’s world and his potential connections to
> military secret projects.  Earlier we have a smilar encounter between Eric
> and Ice as Eric is searching the dark web and is warned with threats.
>       One obvious reason for this limit on how deep one is allowed to go
> as writer/reader has to do with the secretiveness of what is hidden from
> public view. They represent real limits on what we can know in the the US
> today. Pynchon chooses money as one of the trails into hidden doings but
> money has to do with motive and that gets even murkier. It has to do with
> what we hide from ourselves and the overlap between what the leaders of a
> society hide and what the members of the society prefer not to know about
> what their money and government and bosses do.
>      How much of this secrecy can co-exist with political freedom,
> informed choices, fair economic competition, international policies?
>        Part of the obvious problem being outlined concerning the role of
> communication tech is the imbalance of power between the watched and the
> watchers, the deciders and those for whom things are decided.
>        Any other thoughts on the 2 kinds of spooks or this particular
> scene?
>
>     > On Feb 4, 2022, at 12:29 AM, Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>     >
>     > Starts on pg 190 of 470 (Nook pagination)
>     > At the 40% mark in the book
>     >
>     > Ends on pg 201, 43% in
>     >
>     > People
>     > - Maxine
>     > - Randy, a guy in the bar
>     > - Westchester Willie, a guy from the video
>     > - Bethesda, a young woman in the bar, wearing painter’s overalls and
>     > Chinese tats
>     > - something in a child-size fatigue uniform
>     > - Heidi
>     >
>     > Places
>     > - the LIE in a rental Camry
>     > - Junior’s Ooh-La-Lounge (barroom, ladies’)
>     > - the burned ruins of Shae, Bruno, and VIP’s old playhouse
>     > - Montauk Point Lighthouse parking lot
>     > - Gabriel Ice’s summer retreat (“Fuckingham Palace”)
>     > - the house thereof, swarming with contractors
>     > - the wine cellar for Randy to loot in an attempt to recover unpaid
>     > invoices for his materials, let alone labor
>     > - a spooky underground passage behind a coded-access door in the
> corner of
>     > the wine cellar
>     > - a dream landscape
>     > - a deli around the corner from Tail ‘Em and Nail ‘Em
>     >
>     > Action
>     > - Maxine gets teary eyed over a country song while driving, about a
> couple
>     > who forgot to ground their Airstream trailer & kept getting shocked
> off the
>     > walls
>     >
>     > - Maxine following clues from the video to get that boots on the
> ground
>     > look at its setting
>     >
>     > - stopping at Junior’s Ooh-La-Lounge when she figures she’s near her
> goal,
>     > for directions from
>     > locals
>     >
>     > - Maxine charms Randy, a contractor to whom Gabriel Ice owes big
> money, he
>     > gives her more info about Bruno and Shea (like, the playhouse burned
> down!
>     > Though no bodies were found)
>     >
>     > -Maxine and Randy agree to go together both to the scene of the
> video, and
>     > to Ice’s place, pretending to be on an assignation
>     >
>     > - There’s a friendly conversation among the tavern guests about the
>     > tribulations of the contracting business
>     >
>     > - Bethesda, another tavern guest, takes Maxine aside in the ladies’
> room
>     > and treats her to a Montauk makeover, with abundant hairspray, so
> she will
>     > be less conspicuous on her sortie with Randy
>     >
>     > - Bethesda and Randy both think that Gabriel Ice torched the
> playhouse,
>     > likely because he was also using it for sex & was getting
> blackmailed.
>     >
>     > - at the playhouse’s burnt remnants Maxine opens her purse for her
> digital
>     > camera to photograph it, and Randy sees her Beretta. A little gun
> badinage
>     > - he says he has a Bersa 9 millimeter & perhaps excited by the
> armaments
>     > talk, advances his palm to her rear. She’s pleased to note that he
> removes
>     > it when challenged.
>     >
>     > - she leaves her car in the visitor parking at the Montauk
> Lighthouse so
>     > they can discreetly drive together to Ice’s house.
>     >
>     > - Randy grabs a bag of grout and a cup of coffee to walk them
> unnoticed to
>     > the wine cellar thru the throng of workers at the house.
>     >
>     > - he chooses with a discerning eye some wine and explains he might
> sell it
>     > on eBay to recoup some of the costs that Ice hasn’t bothered to pay
> him for
>     >
>     > - while Randy takes that load to his truck, Maxine opens a key-code
> door in
>     > the corner of the cellar, using one of a list of Hashslingrz codes
> she got
>     > from Eric Outfield via Reg Despard
>     >
>     > - the corridor behind the door is spooky, with many doors on its
> sides, and
>     > she begins to hear weird military-type call signals and such. Her
> notion is
>     > that the lacquered coiffure Bethesda gave her is picking up these
>     > transmissions. But she is daunted, no question
>     >
>     > - she believes she is heading toward the urban-legend secret Montauk
>     > installation
>     >
>     > - when she comes to a stairway leading down and sees a child-size
> figure in
>     > fatigues coming up, she turns tail and runs (“All right, Air
> Jordans, do
>     > your stuff!”)
>     >
>     > - back in the wine cellar, Randy also seems nervous enough to be
> less picky
>     > about his second load of wine. They return to his truck; he returns
> Maxine
>     > to her rental Camry, and after a friendly invitation to meet up at a
>     > shooting range in Yonkers called “Sensibility” (‘Men always
> welcome’) which
>     > Maxine tentatively accepts without actually specifying when, and
> after she
>     > decides to let him keep the burgundy she had selected after all, he
> leaves
>     > her to it.
>     >
>     > - “it” being the drive back to Manhattan, accompanied on the radio
> by the
>     > vocal stylings of Droolin’ Floyd Womack on the subject of his
> throbbin’
>     > brain.
>     >
>     > - Maxine’s throbbing brain that night treats her to a dream that
> sort of
>     > recaps all that’s been going on, but skewed of course
>     >
>     > - next day Heidi comes by the office & they get some salads at the
> corner
>     > deli. Maxine asks for Montauk lore, which, as we know, Heidi is an
> SME
>     > (subject matter expert) on, teaching a course in fact.
>     >
>     > - However, Heidi is less informative than meta: she talks about the
>     > relationship of urban legend to truth and to the popularization of
> wild
>     > tales. Few deets!
>     >
>     > - what Maxine already knows, however, and her “throbbin’ brain,”
> cause her
>     > to lose her appetite. Heidi is glad to help her finish the meal, and
> Maxine
>     > finally teases back ( when I saw no riposte for Heidi’s earlier,
> “Maxi,
>     > earnest Maxi…” I was worried, but though she’s lost her appetite, she
>     > hasn’t lost her complete quiver of quippage) - “Fress, Heidi, fress
> please.
>     > I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”
>     > --
>     > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
>
>
>     --
>     Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>