SLPAD - 93 - Low-Lands - 6

[David Morris]

The tone-deafness and lack of subtlety, sheer clumsy, groan-inducing
“artistic/symbolic” techniques makes me wonder if this is the same author
of GR.

On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 9:36 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm having trouble finding anything redeemable in Low-lands, though there's
> some overlap with stuff that was cut from V. which I find intriguing
>
> rich
>
> On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 1:41 AM Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > “You keep that weird crew down in the rumpus
> > room,” she would yell, brandishing a cocktail shaker. "You are a damned
> > ASPCA, is what you are. I doubt if even they would take some of the
> animals
> > you bring home.” What Flange should have answered but didn’t was
> something
> > like, “Rocco Squarcione is not an animal, he is a garbage man with a
> > fondness, among other things, for Vivaldi.”
> >                It was Vivaldi they were listening to now, Sixth Concerto
> > for Violin, sub-titled Il Piacere, while Cindy stomped around upstairs.
> > Flange got the impression she was throwing things. He wondered every once
> > in a while what life would be like without a second story and how it was
> > people managed to get along in ranch-style or split-level houses without
> > running amok once a year or so.
> >
> >
> >
> > Il Piacere is a fairly well-known piece, at least I recognized it. It
> runs
> > about 9 minutes, so they may have run through a lot of repertoire before
> > getting to this piece.
> >
> > 8 hours of drinking wine and listening to music, wow, he must be pretty
> > sick of his job if this is his preference. (A little bit of Bartleby the
> > scrivener preferring not, although Flange may possess slightly more
> > volition...and at least he has a drinking companion - a little bit of
> > peripheral Huck and Jim)
> >
> > And it seems reasonable to impute an inebriated "yeah, that's what I
> > should've said," state of mind - so that this is still Flange speaking,
> not
> > the omniscient narrator chiming in with an unimpressive normative
> > rejoinder. (That entity, I choose to believe, has a clearer vision, a
> > higher purpose, and manifests through choice of details & vocabulary
> rather
> > than intervening directly.)
> >
> > Suburban misery chronicles were familiar territory - John Cheever? - so
> > could Pynchon be upping the ante by making Flange a wealthy denizen of a
> > beyond-prosperous exurbia, and exaggerating the marital disharmony?
> >
> > Gratuitous author-state-of-mind speculation: at time of writing, his
> > description of a 7 year  marriage gone stale could not reflect personal
> > experience but rather observation - of people in his circle of family and
> > friends, also stories of Cheever, maybe John Updike, and other media such
> > as "The Seven Year Itch" (1955)
> >
> >
> >
> > Then this:
> >
> > He wondered every once in a while what life would be like without a
> second
> > story and how it was people managed to get along in ranch-style or
> > split-level houses without running amok once a year or so.
> >
> >
> > Meanwhile, Cindy is in fact running amok upstairs, which he's able to
> > ignore because of the spatial separation provided by both his stereo
> system
> > and the generous dimensions of their house.
> >
> > Again a glimpse into the mind of Flange as the thought of living with
> less
> > of wealth's cushioning  briefly enters his mind, but only as something
> > other people experience.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>