the Throes of Thesis Writing

I'm not sure how many people read this, but here's my little bit of procrastination for the day... I've only recently become inspired [at least a little bit; I'm forecasting that it will only last for at most 10 pages worth of writing before I run out of steam] and am really excited about writing my thesis. I've decided to combine a formal thesis and a more creative, personal (one might even say encyclopedic) aspect on the analysis of representations of cities and travel in literature, of course with an emphasis on some passages in the books we've read. I didn't want to share anything during the workshopping in class because I didn't feel I'd really pulled together or focused what I was going to write about. How's everyone else doing?

More Pynchon resources for your summer enjoyment

I've posted the "plot grid" handout given in class to our webpage: http://ic.ucsc.edu/~ksgruesz/ltel190f/PynchonGrid.htm

. . . And also, a link to the complete list of published reviews of the book: http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/popus/pynchon.htm

. . . And a plug for the "Chumps of Choice" blog, a kind of reading group: http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/

Enjoy your further forays, and have a great summer!

Pynchon sources; what's Iceland spar?

Check out this link to the Against the Day Wiki, a collective creation of many devoted readers. Some of the material is decorative but unenlightening (a vintage logo for Pinkerton's Detective Agency, e.g.), and some of it just cross-references to Wikipedia, but some of the entries are great.

The entry on "Iceland spar," for instance, was truly enlightening (pun) to me. It really does create double images. Here's a photo demonstration: http://geology.about.com/library/bl/images/blcalcite.htm

thoughts from class yesterday

so during class i was furiously writing down all these connected and not so connected thoughts to the discussion that was going on. i wanted to post them to see if it could maybe start or continue a discussion for tues. these are going to be in a bullet point kind of style because my train of thought kept changing. continue on if interested-but remember they are just thoughts and works in progress
-i was thinking about the theme of colonization, (and possibly thinking about just doing a traditional paper on this topic, because the creative one is freaking me out) and how the talk of colonizing the sky, and time, and everything else could be seen as happened already, in our time, and perhaps this is one of the many messages of the novel. the colonization of places such as the sky tie into the colonizing mission of many turn of the century expeditions, and the rise of modern medicine and science could be argued as the colonization of the body, delving down to the very atomes of existence to conquer and master the why and how of the human body (which applies to many other things as well) this colonization of the bosy is also a colonization of time, because science is mobilized through a discourse of health and longevity, the idea that the more we know about the body and how it works through new scientific technological breakthroughs, the longer we can prolong life and stave off death. beings that (as we can comprehend and understand it) time is a phenomenon that life seems dependent on, to colonize and master and control the body is to essentially control or colonize time as well.
-why/what is pynchon trying to archive?
perhaps that the ability to archive is impossible-the 'post-modern' idea that one idea flows into another and can not be separated, just like these stories seem disconnected but connected somehow-
how the past is shaping the present and the future (and benjamin states something to this effect-that the past is not dead but an active agent on the present in helping to shape the future) and this is done by the disconcerting time/space thing going on, especially 128-137.
there is no neat linear way of thinking through things-just like the way in which this novel does not progress in a linear fashion, neither do our lives follow a trajectory we assume it will when we wake up, things pop up, detours occur, and it is interesting that the phrase most commonly used (in my experience) when this happens is "hey, that's life" or "life happens". if this is the norm for most people, why do we continually lie to ourselves about linearity and a forward or progressive model of life?
this issue of messy connections also ties into the question of whether this is a novel or a history-where does the fiction end and the hitroy begin? where do the historical facts end and the fiction begin. it is not something that can be separated or pointed to, but something that we can read is present in the book. how is this possible?
it is also interesting to think about the resistence that pops up when reading fiction when the narrative voice is authoritive, but generally when reading something 'scientific' or 'historical' or anything with the word 'fact'- why does one tend to have more resistence to one but not the other? if one believes that all history is a fiction, and all fiction is a history- i would find it more interesting to think about what the narrative vioce is trying to do.- is it authoritive for a reason? what kind of feeling is it creating between the reader and the words- what relationships are being built between the text/reader/narrator? what is it making the reader pay attention to?is it sarcastic? self-concious? factually authoratie? intellectually authoritive? parentally authoritive? governmentally authoritive?
um, so that was my bit of thought ramble for thurs-
cheers
levi

Accordian Crimes depresses me...

I started reading Accordian Crimes and am partly through the third segment/story. And as beautifully written as it is, it depresses me about American nationalism, history, immigration, and cultural assimilation. Each story has a character that ends up hating or denouncing their cultural heritage, which I think really has potential for rich analysis. Though I can see the similarities with Melville's Moby Dick "book of everythingness," I find Accordian Crimes much more interesting in its wholeness of people and places.

Moby Dick and "Thickness"

“Thick”

I could not slim down all the synonymous and related words that “thick” and “density” conjure for me in Moby Dick. I began to lose my harness on the original word and anything which was not narrow, shallow, thin, or simple suddenly seemed “thick”. So I noticed Ishmael’s trend to digress on vastness, broadness, width, fat, immensity, ubiquity and the most fun—the infinite! Suddenly the whole book seemed all about the thickness of living and ideas and oceans and whales and books and endless everything and endless nothing and basically whatever we see and find in it all—whether madness or a nice, juicy steak. So, I felt a desire to show something which was thick, and dense and bulky and odd and which would make me want to digress while making it and looking at it also. I felt obliged to show the vast white whale himself. And the think spurt of blood and I was admittedly baffled at how to describe Ahab’s broad madness… so I cut out a large hole—to let us all question that one. I showed a big bloody hunk of blubber, lots of britty clusters, dense, twisted rope, the herds of shark, the sea, Queqeegs’s intricate and infinite tattoos and his golden, bulk. I also felt obliged to show great amounts of pages and words. So by the semi-white whale’s tail I also placed pictures of books words books and words and globe and a lobster at rest on a book.

All things 'accordion' to plan. . .

Here's a link to a PBS documentary on conjunto music on the Texas border titled "Accordion Dreams": http://www.pbs.org/accordiondreams/main/index.html

Teach yourself how to play different musical "languages" associated with the accordion! http://www.homespuntapes.com/catagory/default.asp?catID=8&ctype=i

And finally. . . accordion jokes galore! http://www.accordions.com/index/fun/jok/fun_jok.shtml