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Vineland
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Bhavani
Jan 12, 2013, 6:36:22 PM1/12/13
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Finished reading it yesterday. Rilly loved this book especially the ending. Lots of bardo moments and a recurring emphasis on attention. I wondered if people who name things on the internet might have read Vineland or if Pynchon wrote with precognizance on p. 219, "They twitted one another for taking inordinate amounts of earth time to clean up relatively penny-ante karmic business." Another twitter mention appears later. Also he talks about the Tube so much it reminds me of the ubiquity of YouTube.
As with the other two Pynchon books recently read, some passages eerily jump out with poignancy and relevance to other things going on. Yesterday I read:
"As night fell, Hub Gates, who'd brought all his arc lights up here with him along with his old partners Ace and Dmitri, lit up a couple for the kids. He was between jobs but had a gig up in Beavertown, Oregon, in a week. Somehow he'd managed to keep his little business, Lux Unlimited, profitable enough that he ate every day, though where he slept wasn't always up to code. Enough people still responded to the mystery of a powerful beam of light, miles in the distance. He showed his newly met grandson, Justin, how to rock the carbons to get the best beam, and how to keep them trimmed, till Frenesi came by and Justin remembered it was almost prime time." p.369 - 370.
On to Gravity's Rainbow in a couple of weeks.
As with the other two Pynchon books recently read, some passages eerily jump out with poignancy and relevance to other things going on. Yesterday I read:
"As night fell, Hub Gates, who'd brought all his arc lights up here with him along with his old partners Ace and Dmitri, lit up a couple for the kids. He was between jobs but had a gig up in Beavertown, Oregon, in a week. Somehow he'd managed to keep his little business, Lux Unlimited, profitable enough that he ate every day, though where he slept wasn't always up to code. Enough people still responded to the mystery of a powerful beam of light, miles in the distance. He showed his newly met grandson, Justin, how to rock the carbons to get the best beam, and how to keep them trimmed, till Frenesi came by and Justin remembered it was almost prime time." p.369 - 370.
On to Gravity's Rainbow in a couple of weeks.
Psmith
Jan 12, 2013, 10:51:57 PM1/12/13
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Glad you loved Vineland. I few characters also showed up in Inherent Vice. I bet you'll love Gravity's Rainbow. I read in a letter of Anton Chekhov today that he thought of attending the 1893 Chicago Fair which begun Against the Day. Perhaps he would have appeared in the novel.
Dan Clore
Jan 14, 2013, 1:20:15 PM1/14/13
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--
Dan Clore
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RMJon23
Jan 15, 2013, 3:53:05 AM1/15/13
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On Saturday, January 12, 2013 7:51:57 PM UTC-8, Psmith wrote:
> Glad you loved Vineland. I few characters also showed up in Inherent Vice. I bet you'll love Gravity's Rainbow. I read in a letter of Anton Chekhov today that he thought of attending the 1893 Chicago Fair which begun Against the Day. Perhaps he would have appeared in the novel.
Odd synchro-mesh: in reading on Huxley in Hollywood, I stumbled upon Gerald Heard and Isherwood and Huxley's involvement with Vedanta. In what was part of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, Swami Vivekananda gave a big speech at a gathering of most of the world's religious leaders.
> Glad you loved Vineland. I few characters also showed up in Inherent Vice. I bet you'll love Gravity's Rainbow. I read in a letter of Anton Chekhov today that he thought of attending the 1893 Chicago Fair which begun Against the Day. Perhaps he would have appeared in the novel.
The number 108 is very big in India, for a variety of reasons; there are 108 beads on the necklaces worn by monks, for example. Anyway, Vivekananda gave his talk in Chicago, some of the lines:
"Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed the beautiful Earth. They have filled the Earth with violence, drenched it often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now."
He gave that talk on September 11, 1893: 108 years before 9/11/01.
Probably only a coincidence...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_World's_Religions
Bhavani
Jan 15, 2013, 3:23:35 PM1/15/13
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Dan, Beaverton was my typo not Pynchon's.
Michael, a very interesting, prophetic-looking coincidence - World's Fair and World Trade Center. Vivekananda is on Crowley's suggested reading list.
>
Michael, a very interesting, prophetic-looking coincidence - World's Fair and World Trade Center. Vivekananda is on Crowley's suggested reading list.
>
Dan Clore
Jan 16, 2013, 3:56:03 PM1/16/13
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understanding of Raja Yoga.
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