CoL49 - Arrabal

[J K Van Nort]

Like I said, the JJ Angleton is interesting, plausible but not convincing. 
What at first angered me about BE but by the second reading pleased me more was the lack of conspiracy theories taking center stage. It’s all hinted and alluded but not the story, and hitch remains about a New Yorker’s experience living through 9/11.

How dare they not include AtD in that list!!! Another reason that I don’t value lists beyond the opportunity to find something new to read or music to hear.
Mark, you keep adding to my list of books to read. Thank you!

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone


On Friday, July 12, 2024, 16:50, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

The novella was conceived and written in 64-65.....Yes, the CIA is a joke
in the text; tell you anything? Does me.

I can riff on how the novella is about Psychiatry and is Hilarious....



On Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 1:44 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Arrabal
> Mark:
> The CIA is in the text. And since there is no actual historic Mexican
> anarchist CIA and since the CIA itself was active in Mexico against
> leftists I think its use is not without suggestive intent.  Angleton has
> the same first name as Arrabal, and a similar last name to duke Angelo.  If
> the reader has begun to suspect that the novel is not about curious CA
> housewives and a rich man’s stamp collection, and has thought about the
> political murder story of the Courier’s revenge, and has picked up on the
> references to Dulles, Dallas, Mafia, WW2 profiteering,  the beginning of an
> anti-war movement in 1966, right wing movements , and rampant corporatized
> militarization, well it does not seem like such a stretch to feel the CIA
> reference used as a joke has serious undertones.
>
> James
> As to the exact moment when OM decides to leave PI, I’m just doing my best
> to get the implications of the beach story. Decisions usually build up over
> time  and there are other hints about this decision, but this appears to be
> close to her leaving and obviously contributes to that decision. As to the
> exact wording of how Arrabal’s parting words are to be interpreted I am not
> trying to imply more than what is said, I agree that, as in many Pynchon
> lines , there is ambiguity; but there is also basic intent and specific
> word choices. I probably should have said she leaves carrying Arrabal’s
> thought that there maybe a higher level  guiding him and  this night could
> confirm such a possibility for her.  I was trying to summarize the
> implications of the parting feeling more than make a definitive statement.
> We know OM is deeply conflicted over how to make sense of this night and
> keeps looking for a satisfactory explanation.
>
> COL 49
> P-list
> I am not claiming a definitive interpretation of COL 49 or Thomas
> Pynchon.  That is a presumptuousness I do not embrace.  I have set out my
> intent to follow both the human story and a more allegorical (for want of a
> better word) layer implying the impact on the american psyche  of the JFK
> assassination and the suppression of research and evidence-gathering around
> that event. This intent on my part  formed in the weeks leading up to the
> start of the group read by reading and listening to the novella several
> times and feeling there is an empty space at the middle of this work set in
> 1966, 3 years after JFK’s murder and yet with no direct  reference to that
> event despite other political and cultural time signatures. I have read all
> of Pynchon’s work multiple times and part of my picture of COL 49 has come
> from patterns I have observed from V to Bleeding Edge. I believe my methods
> and interpretation falls well within the bounds of well reasoned essays and
> literary criticism of Pynchon and like any good writing about this writer
> whose  scope is so large, I try to narrow the focus to a manageable level
> and the layer that speaks to me..
>
> I have known from the start that my ideas and possibly even my
> participation would be rejected by Mark and David who often make clear that
> they reject the socio-political spin I find in P’s writing. I believe this
> limitation puts them in a small minority of Pynchon readers,  a large
> number of whom I have engaged with in several other reading groups with
> whom there is much shared understanding with myself. And while I do not
> read P crit extensively, there was a time in past decades when I read more
> of that,  and found  political interpretations are not uncommon from astute
> academic writers. I welcome reasoned criticism and find value from the give
> and take of that process that is part of group  book read. I work at being
> respectful in those exchanges even when not treated that way myself.
>
> Right now I am a bit disappointed that there has been no discussion of the
> failings of this novel, since Pynchon himself criticizes it in Slow
> Learner’s intro. It seems a bit weird not to consider this. I suspect that
> the biggest reason is that I am the only one to suggest it. Oh well.
>
>
>
>
> > On Jul 12, 2024, at 9:21 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I like this and I may be wrong, as James stated....but I do remember an
> > early letter of TRP's
> > which said something like my allusions are clear on the page. I don't
> > overpack them.
> > CIA Angleton, per Joseph, is nowhere in this Arrabal allusion I still
> > say....and so much that that drags in.
> > Which would, I maintain, change the whole meaning of the text which is
> what
> > I meant.
> >
> > And, again I argue, yes, his fiction is full of allusion but most of it
> IS
> > RIGHT THERE in the context of the story.
> > Look at Rapunzel here in LOt 49......all the variations of the original
> > story do not seem to matter as does the basic myth--
> > let down your hair and escape that tower...(by the way, speaking of
> letting
> > down one's hair, I now think of Solange
> > again and her "Change your hair; change your life"....ask a group of
> smart
> > women of an age about that line AND off to the
> > felt races.....I brought it up in my Phlip Roth class when, in a late
> Roth,
> > INDIGNATION, Roth spends words on a woman who does that...
> > who has been bisexual........the identification with hair styles and
> change
> > was all over the class........
> >
> > On Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 6:08 AM J K Van Nort via Pynchon-l <
> > pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Joseph's research is interesting at least. How much of this Pynchon
> >> explored and implied is debatable, but much of it agrees with his
> oeuvre's
> >> attitude about anarchism and revolution/resistance.
> >> I don't agree with Mark when he says:"I don't think TRP put all of that
> >> into his Arrabal...it kills the story; it adds meaning that distorts the
> >> story. It buries his narrational meanings...."
> >>
> >> How does it "kill the story"? It is a moment that takes up 2 pages,
> which
> >> makes a connection with Pierce and provides us with Arrabal's view of
> him.
> >> We get some history/snippets of Mexican anarchism and a strange resolve
> >> from Arrabal: "I'm just a foot soldier. The higher levels have their
> >> reasons." Anarchism opposes hierarchy, so who would be the higher ups?
> >> Where is the distortion? There are many rabbit holes in Pynchon that
> lead
> >> nowhere or to information that doesn't contribute to some
> interpretations,
> >> but that is a characteristic of Pynchon's writing. It's hard to imagine
> >> that Pynchon randomly chose Jesus or Arrabal. Investigating possible
> links
> >> is part of reading Pynchon. Should we not investigate Gould because it
> >> would distort the narration Mark? Forrester? Dulles? McCarthy?
> >> What are these narrational meanings being buried? I'm curious, because I
> >> don't see that at all.
> >> I also disagree with Joseph when he says:"For Oedipa this is when she
> >> leaves Pierce and later realizes that Jesus had seen and characterized
> the
> >> basic nature of PI that she, until then, had not clearly seen."
> >>
> >> I can't make that inference that this beach discussion with Jesus
> >> enlightens her about Pierce. It may be a link in the chain, but it is
> not
> >> the "moment". For me this brings Pierce's Gould-like capitalism into
> >> glaring clarity for Jesus, which affects her perception as well.
> >> "She leaves feeling there may be a higher level guiding her quest."
> >> The text is deliberately ambiguous here. "She carries this thought back
> >> out into the night with her." It's there; it may be germinating, but she
> >> expresses no specific feeling of being guided by it. There are points
> where
> >> she feels guided by something, by a higher force, but she doesn't
> >> specifically relate them to this discussion.
> >> In solidarity,James
> >>
> >> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
> >> --
> >> 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