Re: SLPAD - 128 - “Entropy” - 2 - epigraph

[Michael Bailey]

Ian Livingston replied to John Krafft thusly:

It's a very Buddhist sort of statement. Non-attachment and all that.

On Sat, Feb 24, 2024 at 5:21 AM Krafft, John M. <krafftjm at
miamioh.edu <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>>
wrote:

>* I've probably raised this issue before, but people seem to ignore it: Does
*>* the narrator of Tropic of Cancer take Boris seriously/solemnly? He goes on
*>* to say almost immediately, "I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am
*>* the happiest man alive." Shouldn’t that temper our reading of the short
*>* story?
*>>* John*


Buddhist is a different way to look at it - for sure

I was thinking more like Henry Miller was bringing his cockeyed American
optimism to post WWI Europe and hoping to cheer them up - I mean, he
deloused Otto, which should count for something (one rarely thinks of the
original meaning of the word “lousy” - which itself isn’t as commonly heard
as it was a few short years ago, although most English speakers would
recognize it) - and he didn’t try to argue Otto down, cleaving to the great
philosophy I remember reading on a Brian Eno album cover: “lead by example”

The article I cited & linked ambles thru some memories of reading Miller
but finally reaches the conclusion that re-reading him was a bit boring.

Eh - maybe so - I haven’t spent any time at all rereading the tropics or
sexus/nexus/plexus - but there were some passages that lit me up & I still
remember.

One was one of those “news to me” factual bits that I never thought of
before, but sticks to the ribs: he was talking about a dry cleaner
“steaming farts out of trousers” (or words to that effect) - I guess they
do linger there…changed my perspective on pants.

One was where he and maybe a friend went to a diner & a young man who was
there with his wife addressed the whole room, telling everyone how happy he
was & how lucky and wonderful they all were. He really carried off
portraying the good mood & put me in one that I’ve accessed repeatedly over
the years.

There was an adjective that was kind of thrilling, talking about the
“commodious” vagina of one of his love partners.

His whole experience of being a fan of Knut Hamsun, writing an excited
letter, and receiving back a letter basically begging for money, when he
himself was stony broke!

Then, in his ancillary writings, of course I can’t remember which, a couple
more:

“Imagine a chart with Uranus impossibly well-aspected” - no doubt he was
driving towards a point, but I have stayed hung up on imagining a Uranus
impossibly well-aspected.

His natal chart
https://www.astrotheme.com/astrology/Henry_Miller

shows Uranus in the 7th house (house of relationships, love, and marriage)
along with the Moon and Mars.


Also - somewhere he has a really great quote about something like, “I
consider myself a natural leader, but nobody listens to me, so I took up
writing” - or something like that.


But the Buddhist perspective does sort of fit in - although Henry Miller
didn’t allow Otto to harsh his high, his recounting of his life didn’t omit
a Buddhist acceptance of all the negativity amid which he was fairly
successful in flourishing?


But yes, as John mentions, it does seem like an epigraph would provide a
clue or a hint about the story to come.

  None of the other stories in SL have one, afaict.