deconstructive paralysis; or, my tumble and headlong freefall into the Symmes' hole

Ouch! Wyn eal gedreas! (The joy has died!)

Yeah...life has just unexpectedly demonstrated its ability to suddenly close in on humble, hopeless graduate students and transmitted the awareness (to said graduate students) that even if they put in twenty-two (22!) hour days for an entire week, they will still end up getting crushed. Our humble protagonists are then also graced with the simultaneous awareness that their awareness of the former in and of itself is really rather useless because they will inevitably end up blazing ahead and putting in 23.5 hour days...and when all is said, done, and insufficiently edited they will limp away feeling as though they could have done all that they have actually (objectively) managed to achieve in roughly three or four hours to the achievement of seemingly comparable end (though perhaps one which only achieves the illusory safe appearance of congruence in retrospect).

O' to be free to read Against the Day! O' to have written a better draft of my biotopography of Symmes! It was dreadful. In one place, I used the word 'promulgate' in a peculiar and...flat-out incorrect fashion. I had, at least to the best of my knowledge as gleaned by my senses, spent hours and hours writing this fantastic draft on a topic that alternately ravishes and rivets me. In short, I had the glowing, elusive sense of having made an important contribution to an underdeveloped region of the community of letters. Then it...all fell apart. It crumbled in my hands, really. I glanced up at the time in the upper right corner of my MacBook screen and six hours had passed. I was still writing nothing fast (the equivalent of "going nowhere fast" in écriture. At some point along the way the sun had set and my apartment was freezing. I had no idea what had happened during what appeared to be the last twenty pages.

Quel cauchemar! "Cauchemar" is the only mot to describe it. Et 'cauchemar' est masculin, non? [flush] J'oublie.

Anyway, I have to go and read Toni Morrison's Sula before going to my undergraduates' lecture. I have to teach the book tomorrow. "Oh great fun!" you exclaim. "Oh yes..." I reply in kind in a tone both wizened and wary. Maybe I'll write a Sula review tonight. We shall see...I just have this frantic progression of alternately warped, thorned, and luscious literary ideés roaring and splashing through the caverns of my cranium all times. Sometimes it's absolutely delightful and I love the world and everything in't...and then it's not...and then I see Benjamin Franklin at the Laundromat, which happened yesterday. I think he was doing Sudoku on a clipboard.

Hm. Well, in conclusion, I shall initiate a practice I shall call (dum, dum, dum) "Quoth Cate, the Wandering Americanist" or, I guess, QCtWA for I feel like cherishing and cultivating a relationship with the acronymic form (the most interesting and meaningful relationship I've had in years, to give you, dearest reader, a sense of the Wandering Americanist herself).

So. Today's QCtWA:
"Quaesivit arcana poli videt dei."

He sought the secret of the Pole
but found the secret face of God.
(Inscription, Scott Polar Institute, Cambridge)

and God kind of looked like...well..uh..this.

Symzonia: Clearly A Burlesque!!

Dear reader, have patience and peruse the following:

"Of nautical instruments, chronometers, and books treating upon matters in any way connected with my object, I provided liberally. Least of all did I omit Symmes's Memoirs and printed Lectures. Finally, having completed all my arrangements and settled all my affairs, I took leave of my wife and children, whom, as I had no particular friends, I left to the humanity and kindness of the world, and set sail on the 1st day of August, 1817" (20).

"Whether I did or did not see a flying fish, catch a dolphin, or observe a black whirling cloud called a water-spout, is of very little importance to the world" (21).

"Mr. Slim, the third mate, expressed some apprehension, that great danger might be encountered in high southern latitudes; that if we found land, the ice might close upon us and prevent our return to our country...I was not much pleased with this. I have no patience with an officer who suggests doubts and difficulties when I have a grand project in view. I marked him, but at the same time pretended to listen to his observations, as objections of great weight, and then proceeded to remove them from the minds of the officers and people..." (39).

"A plague upon your lean carcass, thought I, how am I to answer so many impertinent questions" (46).

"...but you don't know everything; your mind is too dense to admit the rays of intelligence" (46). [on the likelihood of being roasted, as opposed to frozen, in the antarctic]

NOW, one last thing. Look at this.

"The Library of Congress catalogued the book... with no reference to Symmes. The [catalog] card erroneously described the book as 'A burlesque on Symmes's Theory of Concentric Spheres,' but this dull and earnest book is no burlesque" (Preface, J.O. Bailey, UNC, 1964)

Uh, Dr. Bailey, sir? How did you land a job in academia?

ATD- distracted by...uh...my research

So I'm floating around in the late 300s of ATD and the entire Wild West thing is slowly killing me because I got so excited about the cartography CoC subplot and Kit's visit to Tesla and subsequent relocation to Germany and Dally's adventures in the New York drama scene and her (surprisingly dull) reunion with her mother, but yeah...seeing as I have a paper draft due for a course on Monday, I have decidedly moved ATD to the back-burner for the time being. Agh, necessity...I just don't want to have to fly through Pynchon - that's no way to read for pleasure.

Anyway, I have long sensed the the imminence of my return to my research, perhaps most strongly when I encountered my topic in ATD. I've taken a few days off, which is practically unheard of for me, but I had heard a little voice in my ear - you know the professor in Pi? - saying "Take a bath!" So I bathed in les mots magnifiques du Pynchon and now I actually plan to (ideally) integrate a bit of Pynchonia with all of the Symzonia soon to take over my existence. I still plan to finish ATD by next weekend, just right now...yeah...research.

It might be a drag if my research wasn't such a blast!

Expect an update tonight as I read, from cover to cover, John Symmes wild and wacky Symzonia. Why is this important? Well get this! Symzonia is one of the VERY FIRST American works of Science Fiction and it is the first American Utopian novel! Woah! Oh yeah!

Ahem. So run, don't walk, to your nearest research library (unless you're at UT-Austin because the only other copies on Campus are in the HRC (linked for the uninitiated) and they just so happen to be closed) and pick up a copy of a Symzonia facsimile! Yay, 19th century American sci fi!

Literary Social Media and Future Wanderings

Just finished a momentary break from the ATD excitement to hang out (for a few minutes, anyway) over at LibraryThing. Right now, I'm on 291 in ATD, and the next enormous update comes on 429 (the end of book two, start of book three). But yeah, I kind of started to think about what I'll do after all this ATD excitement. I'll be very heavy into my research (being a graduate student, after all) even as soon as tomorrow...so the ATD stuff will kind of switch to a side, though certainly not a backburner.

The reviews that will probably show up here after my first read-through of ATD draws to a close will likely be on texts related to my research (e.g. Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and Cooper's The Sea Lions). There may also be a few rather zany comments on Charles Wilkes' 1838-1842 narrative of the U.S. Exploration Expedition as well as other random things either on James Fenimore Cooper, Isaac Hecker (Fruitlands participant and founder of the Paulist Fathers), or the guy that wandered around New England and cursed at people (another Fruitlands participant).

Anyway. Back to the concept of literary social media! I'm really interested in exploring the possibilities therein. I think that it is so important and so, well, awesome. Ever since alternatives to the written word have existed individuals for whom I harbor few fond sentiments (including my ex) have snidely declared literature obsolete (and yes, he became my ex due in large part to this ill-forethought declaration).

Well, back to the Pynchon. Enjoy Thanksgiving, everyone. See you on 429!

Against the Day: 22% checkpoint

Well, here we are. It is Thanksgiving morning and I have read roughly 22% of the text. Here are five of my prevailing thoughts on the book:
1. The scope/breadth is astonishing. The depth? Sometimes so. This is still more than one can really reasonably hope for. The book is incredible in this sense.
2. The family trees that other readers have described constructing are really, at least not at this point, vital. I feel as though I know "who" everyone is...at least as much as one reasonably can in the ATD universe (wherein identity is, at all times and in all places, a highly mutable factor...but isn't this so in the universe beyond ATD?) But yes, in terms of lineage, things are still relatively clear cut at this point.
3. Subplots pass at different paces. This, of course, varies on a reader-to-reader basis. For me:
(The number of stars...1=least, 5=most...so [Convolution:*] would be not-so-Byzantine and [Convolution:*****] would be, well, to suggest that reading this subplot is on par with navigating the Labyrinth. Interest is the interest I take in that narrative arc. Convolution is the sheer number of people, places, narrative strands, events, etc. Complication is the amount of background knowledge one senses they need to successfully navigate the arc.

1. The Tesla subplot:
[Interest: *****] Very interesting! See description below.
[Convolution: **] Pretty straightforward at this point.
[Complication: ***] A bit of scientific/mathematical background/research required.

For me, the Tesla subplot is the most enjoyable subplot. The mathematical concepts totally work here. This is also helped along by my peculiar admiration for Kit (the son of an anarchist who "sells his soul" to capitalism to attend Yale to study Vectors). I love Tesla's character and Vanderjuice amuses me. I just love this subplot. The entire dilemma of placing prices on creative/intellectual output really - and I suppose reasonably - speaks to me.

2. The airship (Chums of Chance adventure) subplot:
[Interest: *****] Also very interesting! See description below.
[Convolution: *] Very straightforward; even with the phantom polar crew member!
[Complication: **] You can read into the technology, geography, and aeronautics a bit.

For me, this one comes in second - the technology on the ship appeals to my retro-futurist sensibilities and I find myself actually amused by the antics of Pugnax (which some might chalk up to simple Pynchon goofiness...and it sort of is. I generally find myself rolling my eyes but loving every appearance). The Chums of Chance operate as characters not only in this text, but in a text within the text. At one point, Reef (Webb's son, Colorado subplot) is reading a CoC novel to his father's lifeless corpse as they make their way through the desert toward the miner's cemetery in up in Colorado.

3. The Wild West subplot:
[Interest: ****] Pretty interesting. Pynchon riffs on the Frontier theme yet again.
[Convolution: *] Keep up with the family trees and you're golden (haha, I'm so very witty!)
[Complication: *] Brush up on your Western geography? Just pretend you know? Good enough.

I really like this one too. Anarchists blowing up mines and railroads. An analysis of railroads as being the veins of a nation through which the lifeblood of capital flows. The tracks are often depicted as being alive - not only through the lives of those who build and use them, but as being inherently, in-and-of-themselves, alive. The drug theme plays a significant role in this subplot, with the drug of choice being Nitro. Various characters actually ingest the Nitro and become addicts - craving more, becoming one with explosions as their mental chemistry alters...yeah. This could reasonably be called the explosion and vice subplot - I also enjoy this one a lot.

(The rest)

4. The England subplot:
[Interest: ***] Interesting, but complicated...and still (only seemingly) random at this point.
[Convolution: *****] Uh...um...err....ah...weelll....
[Complication: ****] Know your Eurasian history and Geography. Assimilate enough patience to crabwalk across the hypothetical grand mass (assuming that the Arctic isn't hollow on top...hmm...maybe Vibe or one of his old buddies is...closing it?? Wow!! I wonder!...hm..uh, disregard that unless you're reading too.)

Two Oscar Wildesque Brits pick up Lew after he has been exploded near a creek in Colorado. He goes over to England with them, narrowly escaping the Galveston hurricane (a familiar touch for a reader in Texas). There he falls in with a "spiritual" organization with heavy ties to the intelligensia, intent on persecuting the perpetrators of the crime of History:

"'...no, it is more of an ongoing Transgression, accumulating as the days pass, the invasion of Time into a timeless world. Revealed to us, slowly, one hopes not terribly, in a bleak convergence...History if you like.'
[...]
'Suppose there were no such thing, after all, as Original Sin. Suppose the Serpent in the Garden of Eden was never symbolic, but a real being in a real history of intrusion from somewhere else. Say from 'behind the sky.' Say we were perfect. We were law-abiding and clean. Then one day they arrived'" (ATD 223).

So anyway, the perpetrators of this crime all embody the cards of the Tarot. But the embodiment isn't number or gender specific, so an army can be one card. A woman can be the male fool...you get the idea.

Uh, then...there are railroads? The Eastern Question. The grand continent. The organic railroad returns. Uh, just...yeah. I cannot really explain it yet. But yeah, this subplot is rather interesting, but kind of complicated. Do keep in mind that the vast majority of "complication" in Pynchon is really a question/result/matter of your background/exposure. Anyway, having stated that, I will not really try to get into it at this point. If it remains a fundamental subplot, I will devote an entry to it later.

Well, I guess this isn't really a summary of these pages, but it will have to suffice...because I want to go read! I'm not at the best of stopping points at the moment and so there are, of course, a vast number of loose ends. I will write again when I reach the gateway to book three (page 429, roughly 40% of the way through).

ATD - Distractions (agh!) and the appearance of Cate's research

Agh! I got distracted for quite a while. Phone calls and other randomness, but I had just picked the book back up when I reached the end of section one...and something so incredible that I literally gasped and was thoroughly charmed.

What astonished this humble biblioventurer? Well, the appearance of my research.

Right now I'm embroiled in a study of the high southern latitudes in the American literary imagination and that involves a good deal of study of the Hollow Earth Theory (think Symmes). But yes...I was reading along and the Chums of Chance were in the Southern Indian Ocean and I thought to myself, "Oh, this is just bordering on my research, how funny!" and recalled justifying my Thanksgiving break reading of Pynchon to friends and family as justified for the novel was, like most Pynchonia, "encyclopedic in scope and thus well-within the boundless bounds of the colossal anti-genre of the encyclopedic novel and I was therefore certain to find my research in't." Little did I know that I spoke truth! Not only that...but something truly incredible occurs at this point in the work - something that takes Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and gives the ending of that delightful work an incredible twist.

So they venture over the polar ice in the Inconvenience, and then, well...check this out:

"...as the Inconvenience left the South Indian Ocean's realm of sunlight, crossed the edge of the Antarctic continent, and began to traverse an immense sweep of whiteness broken by towering black ranges, toward the vast and tenebrous interior which breathed hugely miles ahead of them" (115).

Yes, oh yes, Pynchon has read his Poe.

Anyway, it continues...and here is where things get, well, incredible!!!

They go into the Hollow Earth region (no white-robed giants here), but the opening is shrinking and a crew member suggests that this is a frequent defensive/protective measure of living organisms, which is cool. But yeah, this will sound nuts unless you are reading, but hostile gnomes are attacking Inner Earth (go ahead, laugh, it's random and funny, but stay attuned, something glorious is about to be recounted) they begin to descend and then THE AUTHOR STEPS IN. Pynchon? Who knows. Dangerous to assume. So the intratextual author, the author-character steps in and interrupts. Throughout the text there have been crossreferences to the other "books" - a series of Chums of Chance exploits. But here...look:

"...readers are referred to The Chums of Chance in the Bowels of the Earth - for some reason one of the less appealing of this series, letters having come in from as far away as Tunbridge Wells, England, expressing displeasure, often quite intense, with my harmless little intraterrestrial scherzo" (ATD 117).

Here, as in Pym, we are denied a narrative. Yet another "author" steps before us, blocking the view. In Pym, this is the punchline of Poe's joke on the readers. The figure rises before the void - the gatekeeper, representative of the limits of the knowable (Lévy), the narrative itself, or even, as Ricardou suggests, the white at the bottom of the page. After enduring so much with the characters and coming so far, we are, as Stoppard once wrote, ultimately denied an explanation. The narrative gets back to the states and so does Pym. How? We know not. Here, once again, the "author" arises in an interjection so Adamsian (as in Douglas Adams) it's ridiculous. Even an England reference. Charming.

I was seriously charmed. Well. Yeah. I suppose it's time for me to get on with the reading in earnest. As the title of this entry suggests...agh! 429?!? The next section begins on 429. Hm. I'll stick to updating on 250. Wish me luck.

Against the Day: the first 100 pages

So I haven't gotten as far as I initially anticipated I would. I went back and reread the first thirty pages after getting home from school and caught oh-so-many things that I had initially missed while reading in the throes of Pynchonia...or some kind of Pynchon-induced delusional state.

[warning: spoilers ahead]

Anyway, the first 100 pages. Yes. The World's Fair is kind of just a blip on the radar of the book at this point. It happened...it was white and shiny...it's over. You move back in time and follow the arcs of several characters before blazing on into the future as their children (Merle's Dally, who you meet at the fair and Webb's Kit, a young engineer who you meet out in Colorado working for Tesla and about to be sent up east to school (Yale) by none other than the legendary financier Vibe. This is especially interesting because Vibe was conspiring against Tesla's free energy project during the fair by commissioning Professor Heino Vanderjuice. Vanderjuice works at Yale and so you kind of anticipate a meeting between Kit and Heino on the horizon. Other connections? Well, Webb and Merle have met up. Merle enjoying his current incarnation as a photographer/alchemist (related, in his mind, by the notion that he goes about drawing light out of metal in both sciences). Webb, an anarchist, was attracted to Merle's shack on the frontier by the smell of the Nitro and was particularily intrigued by the notion of the Anti-Stone (the antithesis to the Philosopher's-Stone that is "supposed to really mean God, or the Secret of Happiness, or Union with the All, so forth. Chinese talk" (ATD 77).). So basically put, all of the character arcs connect:

The crew of the Hydrogen Skyship Inconvenience introduced in the very beginning of ATD studied under Vanderjuice. They are members of the Chums of Chance (to be explained more later...think some kind of aeronautical Hardy Boys series...AKA Team Zissou (for Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic) fans). I will refer to them as The Inconvenience from here on out. If the membership changes, and this is "important" to my reading of ATD, this will be duly noted.

But yes. The most complicted aspect of the plot at this point is keeping the temporal structure straight. The plot loops backwards three times retracing the narrative arcs of three characters and then it moves forwards, I assume. I may try to plot this out at a later point, but here's the character web:

- The Inconvenience studied under Vanderjuice.
- Vanderjuice was friends with Merle back in the days of the excitement over Aether studies.
- After the fallout of Aether studies, Merle and his young daughter, Dally, started roaming the country and taking pictures for their dinner.
- The fair fell kind of in the middle of their roamings. Merle catches up with Vanderjuice at the fair.
- Vanderjuice has "sold out" or turned to the dark side. He is working to thwart Tesla's free energy model for financier and ultra-capitalist Scarsdale Vibe.

Then, AFTER the fair:

- Anarchist Webb and Merle meet up in Colorado.
- Webb's kid, Kit, "sells out" to go study engineering at Yale on Vibe's tab.
- Merle's kid, Dally, hasn't done much yet except grow up. No run-ins with any of Webb's children. It's hinted that she wants to go and meet her mother (who ran off with a magician and is now comfortably settled in New York with a dozen or so of Dally's half-siblings).

As for the Lew storyline...it's kind of unresolved at this point. I mean, you've met him, he's been spying on people at the World's fair for a detective agency doing counter-terrorism observation at the fair (the terrorist threat here consists of the Anarchists - organized labor). Lew has a very strange...situation involving some great unknown sin. Anyway, he's made an honorary guest member of the Chums of Chance by the Inconvenience before getting relocated down to a new branch of WCI (the detective agency) in Colorado. So you get the sense that things in Colorado will get especially interesting as the story goes on, in large part due to the fact that Tesla's research is literally CHARGING the landscape. Basically, weird stuff is going on. Lots of electric research...weird lights...oh yes. That brings me back to my pet themes: polyphony and light.

My reading of the text focuses very heavily on these two themes. I believe I may have mentioned the polyphony in the "first thirty pages" entry and maybe the light, but I'll do a more in depth entry on these themes later. If you are reading, I'm talking about the voices/lights from above in particular, and other little incidents like Pugnax's polyphonic bark and....hm....what else...there's another instance....something about talking in Colorado - eh, I'll get around to it later (I'm eager to keep reading). And as for the verdict thus far:

Plot: INCREDIBLY intriguing. Kind of complex...but not too much. There's an awful lot going on, but everything connects. I started character profiles in a notebook but I'm kind of falling behind. Hmm...well....that's what rereads are for.

The writing style itself: Uh, slightly simpler Pynchon.

Favorite passages: Those relating to the character's "illuminations" and "enLIGHTenments" - basically when people are said to see through things. They are incredible passages - definitely goosebump and cold shiver inducing. Fabulous.

Ranking amongst other Pynchon novels? Um...Second. (Keep in mind I've only just begun). For other Pynchon fans reading, this is where I stand:

1. Gravity's Rainbow
2. Against the Day [as of now, only about 1/10th of the way through the book]
3. The Crying of Lot 49
4. V.
5. Mason and Dixon
6. Vineland
(the Slow Learner stories fit in there, but I'm only ranking novels here...)

But yeah...back to the reading! I'll write again when I reach 250.

Against The Day: the first 30 pages

Wow, so starting Against the Day is an intimidating and wonderful experience. I cracked open the book and automatically plunged into the Pynchon sea. Dogs reading Henry James...it was peculiar. Definite flashback to Mason and Dixon there. But yeah, it's shaping up to be an experience. I find myself getting lost in the book because I'm only able to read it in bursts at the moment - being on campus, and it being rather cold outside.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to being able to go home at two and enjoy even a few hours of irresponsibility. Pynchon. Starcraft. Oh yes.

I have a feeling that there will be vastly more Pynchoning than Starcrafting, just...the book is incredible. The main thing that's been shaking me up is the continual mentioning of energies and multiplicities - the chorus of voices from above, the dog's polyphonic bark. But the energies are what really get me. I shivered, and not just because of the cold, as I sat out on the quad overlooking the capitol building listening to Phillip Glass on my iPod and reading about these energies that people feel moving about them and around them...and then, in the outlaying shadowlands surrounding the Fair, when Miles solves the card trick...this killed me. I seriously read it about six times:

"'Sometimes, Miles with a strangely apprehensive not in his voice, ' these peculiar feelings will surround me, Lindsay...like the electricity coming on - as if I can see everything just as clear as day, how...how everything fits together, connects. It doesn't last long, though. Pretty soon I'm just back to tripping over my feet again'" (ATD 24).

That is definitely up there with the barometric pressure exchange from TCL49. Definitely. I'm off to read a bit before my undergraduate lecture course...being a TA is rough stuff when you've got the new Pynchon in your arms.

I'll update when I get to page 100. So this afternoon. Yeah.