BEg2 chapter 17 Montauk, Time Travel, and Republican Sin
Mark Kohut
mark.kohut at gmail.com
Wed Feb 9 16:38:46 UTC 2022
Just know......I'm a self-taught Free Indirect Discourser OR
EVERYTHING I LEARNED ON THE WAY TO ANYTHING BUT A DISSERTATION I LEARNED
FROM READING PYNCHON.
On Wed, Feb 9, 2022 at 11:35 AM Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
wrote:
> I also notice that Pynchon tends to populate his subterranean spaces with
> supernatural entities more than any other region, it seems. Sure, the
> forest, oceans, deserts, and mountains may also be haunted; but damn those
> caverns and underworlds, always filled with goblins. Very "chthonic," to
> use the term that makes grad students all hot and bothered. And definitely
> DeepArcher is part of that. So I agree with Joseph here, I think this
> underworld maps nicely onto the subconscious, and making manifest that
> which is kept hidden or repressed.
>
> Mark writes:
>
> "As might be obvious enough for anyone reading these BE posts, I seem to
> differ with Joseph and maybe Allen dunno on the ghostly presence. Yes. very
> connected to the Dark Web and Deep Archer but in this chapter when TRP
> gives us Maxine's dream as well, the ghostly presence seems localized so
> far. This novel is structured as a mystery if it must be
> genre-characterized. Fraud case(s) then a death. Murder?"
>
> I am not disagreeing here; I think Pynchon uses horror and supernatural
> tropes, but it's not the overriding genre by any means. I'll keep your more
> localized idea in my head as we read...many valences to consider...
>
> Mark also writes:
>
> "Yes, when I described it as free indirect discourse this is what I
> meant...."
>
> Oh man, what are you *trying* to turn me on? Next it's gonna be all
> "heuristics" and "Walter Benjamin says..." and then I'm your girl. Just buy
> me a drink first, ok?
>
> —Quail
>
>
>
>
> On 2/8/22, 5:34 PM, "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> Like what you are saying here, paticularly about a blind spot in
> Maxine that is not uncommon in Democrats. And how cool to get a nice
> firsthand report of Montauk. Wish I could offer feedback on Lovecraft but I
> rarely take in the superntural horror genre.
>
> One way I guess I think of Maxine’s ecounter with the being on the
> stairs is that there are these places in our world that are off limits and
> secret because someone wants to hide something that would not be tolerated
> if made public and are therefor dangerous to know about. Considering the
> history of human behavior, there is not much of a limit to how creepy this
> might be, so it begins to be guarded as much by our own inner spooks as by
> anything of substance other than self protection. Not that I can refute
> the existance of something like an astral plane in which weaponizing it’s
> inhabitants becomes possible.Humans through most of history have thought
> something like this. But there seems like a down to earth interpretation
> that Pynchon may want curious readers to get more than any supernatural
> one, the outward being a manifestation of the inward and inherent vice
> versa.
> Gotta go teach a glass class.
>
>
> > On 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.”
> >> --
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> >
> >
> >
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