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.
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.
posted by Cate | 10:59 AM
1 Comments:
well, China does not dislike you, contrary to what I first thought.
so, this is delightful.
hmm, I was certainly thinking Adams as I was reading this entry, and then you throw that in too at the end. I've seen it elsewhere too, the interjection of the fake author, I can't recall where... certainly it's kind of a Monty Python style turn.
it's nice that you can find anything you want in the book. In a way it'd be almost surprising if you didn't find it in there.
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