CoL49 Group Reading - Week 1 Summary & Questions

[Michael Bailey]

Dude …. Wildman!
Unexpected change-up - nifty idea - giddy-up

I think that’s your idea here, switch to GR seamlessly, not spilling a drop?

 Also easing the host burden by removing the synopsis (or making it
optional if anyone likes doing them?)





On Sun, May 5, 2024 at 8:27 AM O G <octogonalyoyo at gmail.com> wrote:

> I happen to agree with this.
>
> As unsavory a phrase as "licking his chops" may be, especially with Pyn,
> that's the feeling I get reading 49.  He was just warming up.
>
> So why not do the one that was...not a drill?  The one where he actually
> bites in.  Let's see how the author does with the second war, rather than
> sad suburban housewives.
>
> I don't recall much of GR, if anything, so I'll start.
>
> Ten pages a week.  The thing with the summary of the ten pages at the start
> of the week isn't necessary.  It's almost as fast to just read the ten
> pages.  Summaries are a lot like summaries.
>
> Questions are always, questions questions.
>
> Questions don't have to be great or good, or remotely anything, just
> questions.
>
>
> On Fri, May 3, 2024 at 10:29 AM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, May 3, 2024 at 9:57 AM Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com>
> wrote
> >
> > *“But making a leap from obscurity to metaphor seems unwarranted.”*
> >
> > Ah! You have fallen unintentionally upon the central metaphor of this
> > novel!  It is almost a perfect restating of the metaphor of Oedepa’s
> > journey:  Conspiracy is a key metaphor for the search for existential or
> > spiritual or realistic or ANY kind of significance in one’s everyday
> > experience.
> >
> > Trust me: Pynchon was only licking his chops with this one. He is quoted
> as
> > aiming for GR to keep the scholars stroking their chins like they did for
> > Ulysses.
> >
> >
> > His gift to the readers of his pre-internet books, read in pre-internet
> > times, was to give them a nodding acquaintance with the obscure and the
> > hidden, and to point them ( as he did for Oedipa) towards unseen
> > connections.
> >
> > I don't believe that he was trying to become his own obscure material;
> >
> >
> > Yes, I know, he was a student (i. e. he sat in his
> > lectures for one course) of Nabokov.
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>