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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3398PALR FIRE
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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 2:34 PM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3398
>
> pynchon-l-digest Saturday, July 12 2003 olume 02 : Number 3398
>
>
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 22:14:43 +0100
> From: "Burns, Erik" <Erik.Burns@dowjones.com>
> Subject: NPPF: preliminary: Shall I Project A World?
>
> Foax:
>
> I'm thinking a bit about the relationship between Oedipa and Kinbote,
> perhaps the "evolution" from one to the other. Kinbote, as a reader and
> interpreter of the world, is a solipsist; he's looking in the text (of the
> world and of the poem) for himself. It seems to me Oedipa is the exact
> opposite; in her quest she is looking in the text of herself for the
world.
> She becomes "sensitive," seeing the The Tristero everywhere, and suddenly
> the mysterious links that connect the world jump into stark relief. For
the
> madman Kinbote, he stares at the world in stark relief already ... and
sees
> things nobody else can, because they aren't really there.
>
> I'm not sure where to go from here with this idea. It's just that _The
> Crying of Lot 49_, in addition to its various Nabokovian allusions ("those
> Humbert Humbert cats" being the most Hodgelike of them all, though
obviously
> a reference to _Lolita_, not that my inner Kinbote would agree), is also
> full of images of Oedipa (and others) trying to come to grips with the
fact
> of an interconnected conspiratorial world, in Oed's case this project
mapped
> on to her search for identity, too (the Remedios Varo image of the sewing
> woman in the tower, "shall I project a world," Maxwell's Demon - these are
> all efforts to impose order and logic on a disordered and illogical world,
> and the discovery of the Tristero tale, and its place in history, cements
> that order and logic.)
>
> to wit: "...owing to this, what you might have to call, growing obsession,
> with 'bringing something of herself' -- even if that something was just
her
> presence -- to the scatter of business interests that had survived
> Inverarity. She would give them order, she would create
constellations;..."
> (_Lot 49_, pp 62-63, Vintage UK edition 2000)
>
> while Kinbote is more "...the true paranoid for whom all is organized in
> spheres joyful or threatening about the central pulse of himself, the
> dreamer whose puns probe ancient foetid shafts and tunnels of truth all
act
> in the same special relevance to the word, or whatever it is the word is
> there, buffering, to protect us from." (_Lot 49_, page 89, same edition -
> (am kind of cheating on the quote as it lists 4 types, saint, clairvoyant,
> paranoid and dreamer, and I've cut off the first two, making it look like
> the second two are the same person.))
>
> On another note, I also think that Kinbote, were you to meet him, would be
a
> crashing bore. (Shade seems to think so too, and Mrs. Shade certainly).
> Oedipa, I fear, would probably also become one, a pusher of conspiracy
> theories like Stephen Lightfoot
> (http://www.lennonmurdertruth.com/index.asp), eventually cornering me at a
> cocktail party 20 years later, her muted posthorn pin in full display, to
> explain all about the mysterious black caped men delivering unfranked mail
> through the W.A.S.T.E.cans of California while I looked over her shoulder
> for the bartender or some other convenient escape. "Oh! Look at the time!"
> (Thank you, Thomas Pynchon, for freezing beautiful Oed for time immemorial
> long before she got there and at a cusp where the possibilities of the
> conspiracy remain chilling as all get out...)
>
> Just a thought.
>
> etb
>
>
>
> -> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3398
> ********************************
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 2:34 PM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3398
>
> pynchon-l-digest Saturday, July 12 2003 olume 02 : Number 3398
>
>
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 22:14:43 +0100
> From: "Burns, Erik" <Erik.Burns@dowjones.com>
> Subject: NPPF: preliminary: Shall I Project A World?
>
> Foax:
>
> I'm thinking a bit about the relationship between Oedipa and Kinbote,
> perhaps the "evolution" from one to the other. Kinbote, as a reader and
> interpreter of the world, is a solipsist; he's looking in the text (of the
> world and of the poem) for himself. It seems to me Oedipa is the exact
> opposite; in her quest she is looking in the text of herself for the
world.
> She becomes "sensitive," seeing the The Tristero everywhere, and suddenly
> the mysterious links that connect the world jump into stark relief. For
the
> madman Kinbote, he stares at the world in stark relief already ... and
sees
> things nobody else can, because they aren't really there.
>
> I'm not sure where to go from here with this idea. It's just that _The
> Crying of Lot 49_, in addition to its various Nabokovian allusions ("those
> Humbert Humbert cats" being the most Hodgelike of them all, though
obviously
> a reference to _Lolita_, not that my inner Kinbote would agree), is also
> full of images of Oedipa (and others) trying to come to grips with the
fact
> of an interconnected conspiratorial world, in Oed's case this project
mapped
> on to her search for identity, too (the Remedios Varo image of the sewing
> woman in the tower, "shall I project a world," Maxwell's Demon - these are
> all efforts to impose order and logic on a disordered and illogical world,
> and the discovery of the Tristero tale, and its place in history, cements
> that order and logic.)
>
> to wit: "...owing to this, what you might have to call, growing obsession,
> with 'bringing something of herself' -- even if that something was just
her
> presence -- to the scatter of business interests that had survived
> Inverarity. She would give them order, she would create
constellations;..."
> (_Lot 49_, pp 62-63, Vintage UK edition 2000)
>
> while Kinbote is more "...the true paranoid for whom all is organized in
> spheres joyful or threatening about the central pulse of himself, the
> dreamer whose puns probe ancient foetid shafts and tunnels of truth all
act
> in the same special relevance to the word, or whatever it is the word is
> there, buffering, to protect us from." (_Lot 49_, page 89, same edition -
> (am kind of cheating on the quote as it lists 4 types, saint, clairvoyant,
> paranoid and dreamer, and I've cut off the first two, making it look like
> the second two are the same person.))
>
> On another note, I also think that Kinbote, were you to meet him, would be
a
> crashing bore. (Shade seems to think so too, and Mrs. Shade certainly).
> Oedipa, I fear, would probably also become one, a pusher of conspiracy
> theories like Stephen Lightfoot
> (http://www.lennonmurdertruth.com/index.asp), eventually cornering me at a
> cocktail party 20 years later, her muted posthorn pin in full display, to
> explain all about the mysterious black caped men delivering unfranked mail
> through the W.A.S.T.E.cans of California while I looked over her shoulder
> for the bartender or some other convenient escape. "Oh! Look at the time!"
> (Thank you, Thomas Pynchon, for freezing beautiful Oed for time immemorial
> long before she got there and at a cusp where the possibilities of the
> conspiracy remain chilling as all get out...)
>
> Just a thought.
>
> etb
>
>
>
> -> ------------------------------
>
> End of pynchon-l-digest V2 #3398
> ********************************