Comments on: “Against the Day” Roundtable, Part One http://www.edrants.com/against-the-day-roundtable-part-one/ a cultural website in ever-shifting standing Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:01:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mark Kohut http://www.edrants.com/against-the-day-roundtable-part-one/comment-page-1/#comment-132730 Mark Kohut Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:06:14 +0000 http://www.edrants.com/?p=5221#comment-132730 Nice synopsis. I think as you read more, you will see that Lew Basnight is a necessary moderate, objective, clear-seeing guy who serves to balance some unbalanced actions and opinions. Nice synopsis.

I think as you read more, you will see that Lew Basnight is a necessary moderate, objective, clear-seeing guy who serves to balance some unbalanced actions and opinions.

]]> By: Robin Landseadel http://www.edrants.com/against-the-day-roundtable-part-one/comment-page-1/#comment-124129 Robin Landseadel Wed, 03 Jan 2007 20:09:17 +0000 http://www.edrants.com/?p=5221#comment-124129 Of course, the subtexts of the opening sentence: "Now single up all lines" include a number of potential tangents, (it's a nautical phrase for the last thing you do before starting your journey). One is, as a set-up for a joke of chaos commencing from space-case/jokster/trickster Miles Blundell on the deck of the now Skyborn "Inconvenience". But it's mostly a set-up for the overarching theme of the novel: Anarchism. Don't know how much signifigance you folks want to give to this, but when we first encounter a reference to Anarchy---and I will posit that "Anarchy" is to AtD what "The Rocket" is to GR---it's on page five in a most encrypted form: literate mongrel Pugnax: . . . .At one end of the gondola, large oblivious to the coming and going on deck, with his tail thumping expressively now and then against the planking, and his nose among the pages of a volume by Mr. Henry James, lay a dog of no particular breed, to all appearances absorbed by the text before him. Said text being "The Princess Casamassima". You have to read another page of AtD before you find the book's title, a typical delaying tactic found throughout the novel.. "It's subject," he was promptly informed by the ever-alert Lindsay Noseworth, who had overheard the exchange, "is the inexorably rising tide of World Anarchism." which turns out to be the motivation for this---their first---assignment in AtD, as the crew drifts towards their destiny in the White City. . . . "I’m going to venture a guess that the ancient-looking seal on the next page is an image of Shambhala, the paradisaical hidden city of Tibetan Buddhist legend—the quest for which figures largely in AtD." I'm going to posit that the seal says "Tibetan Chamber of Commerce", an organization that did not exist until 2005, http://www.tibet.net/flash/2005/1005/191005.html that the backdrop is an image of the Himalayas with a "Snow Lion" commonly found on official Tibetian Government postage stamps from AtD's era and that the script is in a Tuvan form, thus placing the object in the realm of of forgeries, fakes and philatillac Cinderellas. The sorts of stamps Pierce Invararity collects. Of course, the subtexts of the opening sentence: “Now single up all lines” include a number of potential tangents, (it’s a nautical phrase for the last thing you do before starting your journey). One is, as a set-up for a joke of chaos commencing from space-case/jokster/trickster Miles Blundell on the deck of the now Skyborn “Inconvenience”. But it’s mostly a set-up for the overarching theme of the novel: Anarchism. Don’t know how much signifigance you folks want to give to this, but when we first encounter a reference to Anarchy—and I will posit that “Anarchy” is to AtD what “The Rocket” is to GR—it’s on page five in a most encrypted form: literate mongrel Pugnax:

. . . .At one end of the gondola, large oblivious to the coming and going on deck, with his tail thumping expressively now and then against the planking, and his nose among the pages of a volume by Mr. Henry James, lay a dog of no particular breed, to all appearances absorbed by the text before him.

Said text being “The Princess Casamassima”. You have to read another page of AtD before you find the book’s title, a typical delaying tactic found throughout the novel..

“It’s subject,” he was promptly informed by the ever-alert Lindsay Noseworth, who had overheard the exchange, “is the inexorably rising tide of World Anarchism.”

which turns out to be the motivation for this—their first—assignment in AtD, as the crew drifts towards their destiny in the White City. . . .

“I’m going to venture a guess that the ancient-looking seal on the next page is an image of Shambhala, the paradisaical hidden city of Tibetan Buddhist legend—the quest for which figures largely in AtD.”

I’m going to posit that the seal says “Tibetan Chamber of Commerce”, an organization that did not exist until 2005,

http://www.tibet.net/flash/2005/1005/191005.html

that the backdrop is an image of the Himalayas with a “Snow Lion” commonly found on official Tibetian Government postage stamps from AtD’s era and that the script is in a Tuvan form, thus placing the object in the realm of of forgeries, fakes and philatillac Cinderellas. The sorts of stamps Pierce Invararity collects.

]]> By: Tom B. http://www.edrants.com/against-the-day-roundtable-part-one/comment-page-1/#comment-123061 Tom B. Tue, 02 Jan 2007 18:04:39 +0000 http://www.edrants.com/?p=5221#comment-123061 Nice synopsis of the first part of AtD. I recalled many of the bits discussed here, but had forgotten about the exhibits at the Chicago Worlds Fair that prefigure later events, such as Tunguska, so thanks for that. I see Lew Basnight as an homage to the great California detectives such as Lew Archer and Philip Marlowe. AtD ends with Lew working in L.A. I'll follow the roundtable with great interest. I finished AtD yesterday, and may comment at times if I feel I have anything to add. Nice synopsis of the first part of AtD. I recalled many of the bits discussed here, but had forgotten about the exhibits at the Chicago Worlds Fair that prefigure later events, such as Tunguska, so thanks for that.

I see Lew Basnight as an homage to the great California detectives such as Lew Archer and Philip Marlowe. AtD ends with Lew working in L.A.

I’ll follow the roundtable with great interest. I finished AtD yesterday, and may comment at times if I feel I have anything to add.

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