GR translation: Around the bloom

[Michael Bailey]

Less likely: a Joycean reference

 Pointsman as Leopold Bloom to Slothrop’s Stephen Daedalus (-;




On Fri, Nov 29, 2024 at 5:34 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> As I look at the poem, more and more it seems Pointsman is elaborating
> Pavlov’s view on aging, developing the metaphor as a way of valorizing
> (because he himself is old) the concept of how older minds tend to focus on
> one thing at a time, to the exclusion of extraneous though pleasant
> sensations which younger minds need not exclude…
>
> - a phenomenon which more objectively could be viewed as maybe
> unreasonable, like an idee fixe
>
> - and a possible explanation for one of the weaknesses of gerontocracy
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 29, 2024 at 5:23 AM Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It’s the primary meaning, but the passage develops a sense that “paying
>> attention to something makes it bloom in your mind, while the rest of the
>> surroundings tend to fade”
>>
>> At the end of the poem, a bomb blast in a city is referred to as a bloom,
>> whereas lights in windows having been turned off all around in observance
>> of blackout demonstrate the “fade.”
>>
>> Pointsman’s poetry elaborates on his and Pavlov’s concepts of neurology,
>> taking off from a Pavlov lecture quoted right before the poem:
>>
>> “Ordinarily in our behavior, we react not singly, but complexly, to fit
>> the ever present contents of our environment. In old people,” Pavlov was
>> lecturing at the age of 83, “the matter is altogether different.
>> Concentrating on one stimulus we exclude by negative induction other
>> collateral and simultaneous stimuli because they often do not suit the
>> circumstances, are not complementary reactions in the given setting.”
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 24, 2024 at 2:18 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> V226.23-30, P229.13-20
>>> Thus [Pointsman never shows these excursions of his to
>>> anyone], reaching for some flower on my table,
>>> I know the cool mosaic of my room
>>> Begin its slow, inhibitory dissolve
>>> Around the bloom, the stimulus, the need
>>> That brighter burns, as brightness, quickly sucked
>>> From objects all around, now concentrates
>>> (Yet less than blinding), focuses to flame.
>>>
>>> Here the word "bloom" means "flower", is that correct?
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>