Not everything in color makes much sense, either. Which sort of brings us
back to Pym. The trick is to survive the first twenty pages (sorry,
skipping them doesn't work). You'll thank me if you do.
Mark
At 06:15 PM 11/13/2005, you wrote:
>--- Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Melville, quite a bit later, is doing something
> > rather different, tho both
> > are among other things reactions to the Industrial
> > Revolution city. And Pym
> > is unique.
>
>Yeah, "alienation" (to be glib). And I really ought
>to read Pym. (Which I haven't. Yet.)
>
>Disjunction? Dislocation?
>
> > I'm not sure what the whole thing is. Do you mean
> > that the Poe story is
> > somehow like Notes from the Underground? Do you feel
> > like elucidating?
>
>Yes and no. I did pretty specifically have Notes from
>Underground [not a text I really go a bundle on] in
>mind when I wrote my previous post. (Nice not to have
>to explain.)
>
>But a problem I have is that "Bartleby" is
>imaginatively and artistically a class apart from Poe
>and Lovecraft, so it's a bit apples and oranges.
>
>Nevertheless (as I think as of now) there *is* a
>common ground between Poe's Man in the Crowd,
>Lovecraft's naive
>there-are-things-man-[sic!]-is-not-meant-to-know,
>Melville's naive Yankee narrator in "Benito Cereno",
>Hogg in Memoirs&Confessions (and beyond that Stevenson
>in Jekyl and Hyde). Dostoevsky. Thomson's "City of
>Dreadfull Night" ...
>
> Stuff like that.
>
>Sorry, it's late, and my head is a bit mushed. I think
>I kinda sorta know what I mean. Sense. But I can't
>quite articulate it at this precise moment.
>
>Sorreeee ... <g>
>
> > hallucinating? hibernating?
>
>Not everything in black and white makes sense.
>
>Da Dormouse.
>
> > At 11:04 AM 11/13/2005, you wrote:
> > >--- Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Robin: Most of Poe has aged badly (prose as well
> > as
> > > > his insufferable
> > > > poetry), but there are the odd pieces like "The
> > Man
> > > > of Crowds" that remain
> > > > essential, and his one, very early, novel, A.
> > Gordon
> > > > Pym, is simply
> > > > astonishing.
> > > >
> > > > Mark
> > >
> > >K -- and "William Wilson" (the doppleganger theme,
> > >which naturally appeals to a Scot). But the Man in
> > >the Crowd was done better by Melville in Bartleby
> > (and
> > >the whole thing in Poe is Dostoevsky and water).
> > >
> > >What else? Usher? Dear god, geeuz a break ...
> > >
> > > <g>
> > >
> > >A Prejudiced Rodent (who is still not officially
> > back
> > >here yet).
> >
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