Pop-culture referennces

I really enjoy this book, not only for the writing style, but also for the references to popular culture contemporary to the book's publication. Published in 1965, at the height of the Beatles' career, and the so-called "British Invasion," the opening chapters make several references to the Beatles. Oedepia's husband, coming home form his job at the record store, mentions the new single "I want to kiss your feet,' by the band "Sick Dick and the Volkswagons." The title closely mimics "I want to hold your hand" by the Beatles, who also called themselves at one point "Long John and the Silver Beatles." The use of Volkswagon is also a funny ply on "Beatles." Later, Pynchon directly mentions the Beatles as he introduces "Miles," with "a Beatles haircut and a...mohair suit." He is a high school dropout who sings in a band called the "Paranoids" who sing in British accents in order to sell more records.

Mucho!

One thing that I appreciated in the first couple chapters of the book was the description of Oedipa’s husband, “Mucho.” He seems OCD and almost troubled. The description given about his old job at the used car lot is interesting. Pynchon speaks of what emotions and thoughts the random things left in old cars provokes in Mucho. He is unable to let go of the memories of his past and therefore not able to enjoy the present. Panco “could still never accept the way each owner, each shadow, filled in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another, just as futureless, automotive projection of somebody else’s life. As if it were the most natural thing. To Mucho it was horrible. Endless, convoluted incest.”

Pynchon... discourse

Throughout Pynchon’s book, information and or lack of information becomes a problem for Oedipa. Even in the beginning of the novel information is not completely clear. For example, Oedipa must execute the will of an ex-lover, which she finds out via a letter. Information continues to be presented yet confusing when Oedipa gets to her motel and the scene quickly becomes a spectacle with a lot of noise going on. There is the television booming, the band; Paranoid blaring, all while Oedipa and Metzger engage in a wild flirtation. So much is going on in this scene that all the noise meshes together as Metzger and Oedipa become “coincided with every light in the place, including the TV tube, suddenly going out, dead, black.” Information in this book is presented in various ways, from the letter to music. After all, the text is frequently interrupted by strange tunes. The one song that perhaps will coincide with the character’s lives is the “serenade” because this song mentions a “lonely cry,” which may somehow reveal meaning as the book unfolds.

At the Fishhouses

I like this poem because it wonderfully describes the life of a fisherman, which includes the monotony and the strenuous work as well as the beautiful side that can be seen when you look closer. Things that would seem disgusting to many people passing by is a source of beauty for the fisherman who work with these very things all day, every day for years on end. “The big fish tubs are completely lined with layers of beautiful herring scales and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered with creamy iridescent coats of mail, with small iridescent flies crawling on them.”

The unrhymed set up and long stanzas fit perfectly with the overall message and subject matter of the poem. According to the poem, knowledge is “utterly free…[and] forever flowing” so summing the message of the poem up into neat stanzas would contradict what Bishop is trying to say. Also, it would not see right to use perfectly rhymed, short stanzas to describe the tough and tiring work of the fishermen being talked about; the narrative-like set up fits much better with the overall tone of the poem.

Although there is no rhyme scheme, there is a repetition of words that further emphasizes the monotony of their jobs. The words “up” and “down” are repeated several times throughout the poem to show that every morning they must bring down the boats and every night they have to bring them back up only to be repeated the next day. Instead of saying outright “each day they have to do the same thing over and over again” she interweaves it into the narrative because the repetition has become such a part of their lives they don’t even notice it’s there anymore.

The Gift Outright

I was not really sure what I thought of this poem because it was difficult to understand. Robert Frost is discussing American nationalism. I thought the last line of the poem where he says that the western united states was "still undstoried, artless, unenhanced, such as she was, such as she would become" sounds negative to me, thus I cannot decide whether Frost thinks negatively of nationalism or not. This poem was read at JFK's inauguration, and Kennedy asked Frost to say "such as she WILL become" instead of would. Obviously this must be a positive poem or Kennedy would not chose for it to be read on his inauguration but it sounds to have a negative tone. I do find the first line of the poem to be very interesting and effective in catching the readers attention. "The land was ours before we were the land's." Land is not usually referred to as a human possession and is usually attributed to being "owned" by God. Frost however says that "she was our land....before we were her people." This may suggest that on American soil they own their own land, property and have their own rights and ideas where as on British soil they were "possessed."
Another strength to this poem is where Frost says that something was holding the English back (I think he is talking about the English) and later they found it was themselves. This is relevant to the Revolutionary War, which he may be hinting at, because the only people stopping the British from accomplishing their independence was themselves or fellow englishmen.
I also like his line, "found salvation in surrender."
I agree with Erin that this poem is confusing and it has a negative tone to it. I do think that there must be something in this poem because it was used for JFK's inauguration.

'The Gift Outright'

When reading this poem (seeing it was written by Robert Frost), I was surprised by how much I did not like it. Frost speaks here in abstract, almost legal-sounding terms ("Possessing what we still were unpossessed by / Possessed by what we now no more possessed...") that confuse me more than excite some emotion. All Frost seems to point out is that legally, they do not belong to the country in which they live although their living there makes it theirs. The part from "Something..." to "deeds of war" at first made no sense to me, and only after several readings did I guess that he meant giving themselves to the land somehow made them belong to it, and I still don't quite get it. The last three lines stand out the most to me visually, but I can't like them either because they don't seem true: "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" doesn't describe the cultures that existed in the west before the colonials "vaguely realized" in that direction. I suppose Frost speaking from the perspective of a newly-independent American would not see it this way and would write accordingly, but that line still bugs me. "Such as she was, such as she would become." Does this mean that the country would become, as it was, artless and unenhanced?
Does anyone have any more helpful insights on this poem?