University Daily Kansan
Monday, April 22, 1974
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Pynchon Creates Myth In 'Gravity's Rainbow'
By DAVE BECK
Kansas Reviewer
"GRAVITY'S RAINBOW" by Thomas Pacho (887 pages; Bantam Books; 1974; 52A
If you've ever wondered about that single little eye staring out from atop the pyramid on the back of any U.S. $1 bill, or wondered that all those coincides in your life might somehow thread together into an active longing story of some sort, it would be to pick up a copy of Thomas Pynchon's third novel, "Granity's Rainbow."
The book is a roaring mythology of modern times hung upon a framework of psychic heroes, insouciant dopers and ancient Masonic plots and mysteries. Death raps bone-grating chuckles behind each page, and new heights of spiraling drunken revels are described for the first time in modern prose.
The novel centers (vaguely) on Tyrone Slothrop, alias Rock堤人, alias The Only White Man the Natives Trust. Slothrop is driven by peculiar forces, such as his pernicious father who is up to his neck in unsavory connections with Them, his peculiar talent for sensing the precise area of interest, and his curious sexual anomalies, which resulted from exposure in his infancy to a fanatical Pavloivan.
But for all his involvements, Slothrop is a lovable young paranoid. After eluding an
unamble conspiracy in England, Sithrop beads for the postwar continent, hoping to trace the elusive Schwarz-Gerat, only to discover that They have a global organization somehow linked to that most auspicious of natural forces, gravity.
Old Pychnon readers will recognize Seaman Pig Bodine, who makes a cameo appearance in "Gravity's Rainbow." There are countless connections with other books, other stories and other worlds. Slothrop encounters older, more experienced paranoids who help him to construct a world of rules. He learns how to remind him that paranoia isn't easily achieved without long years' experience and study.
Pycnon begins each section of the book with relevant quotations from movies or public figures ("What?""-Richard M. Nixon and occasionally snatches in snatches of songs to better capture the flavor of the more esoteric sequences.
Pynchon is an author who values his privacy, and little is known about him other than the rumor that he currently spends most of his time in California and Mexico.
Anyone who is able to digest a large part of the amazing knowledge and virtuosity exhibited in "Gravity's Ranbow" will find fuel for his wildest flights of fancy and his most awful Suspicion, along with a skillful theme of the Counterforce, or the happy coincidence. Besides, many of us were meant to read it.
Subdued Brass Helps 'Chicago VII' Succeed
Kansan Reviewer
By DANIEL UYESATO
Everyone remembers the old high school stage band director and his band of renown. Every assembly invariably would include a rousing number from them which resulted in a manged pair of earls for the listener because of the high decibel of the brass. Obviously, the brass section's favorite instrument was the bass to 6" to 4" with aching eardrums. You couldn't have paid me to take a Chicago album, let alone buy one.
However, it may be to the advantage of Chicago haters to re-evaluate their positions and give "Chicago VII" half a chance.
My previous complaint-plus the way Chicago's earlier albums all sound the same—is no longer valid on its new double LP. It's not. The latter is much more subdued, and each instrument is an integral part of the tunes. The brass arrangements are more cohesive, and there is evidence of some change in the melody it doesn't always sound like the same old Chicago.
There's a new addition to the group, a percussionist named Laudir Dove, who, coupled with the competent drumming of Danny Seraphine, adds new dimensions of rhythm. De Oliveira is especially effective on the conga, but his presence is marked throughout the entire album, whatever percussion instrument he plays.
The rhythm of Seraphire and De Oliveira give Chicago its new sound, which can best be described as Latin with jazz rhythms. This is best illustrated on "Prelude to the Tune" (Bach), with four drums, percussion and fuse, which up to an incredible flute and drums duet.
Another prominent change can be found in the lyrics of the new Chicago. Perhaps it's the amount of time Chicago spends at its Colorado ranch, which, incidentally, contains one of the best private recording studios in the nation, but it seems that the larger overtones have decreased as it has become more and more successful.
On the album jacket of "Chicago II," the band members scream for revolution; on "Chicago Live at Carnegie Hall," they call them "crazy." They cry out at man's follies, but on "Chicago VII" there is merely a picture of them smiling on their ranch in Colorado. They may have sold out, but at least they must old must behind with their old words.
There may, however, be some people who will dislike this album. Those who hate guitarist Terry Kath will undoubtedly still dislike Chicago, as will those who dislike instrumental groups. However, all things considered, "Chicago VII" is not a bad album and would be worth adding to anyone's collection.
"HOME TO THE WILDERNESS" by
Sally Carryrigher (330 pages; Penguin; 1974)
By CAROL GWINN
Kansan Reviewer
There were casement windows and oblongs of light, Sally Carrighar remembers in her autobiography, "Home to the Wilderness," but then the windows went dark as her mother attempted to strangle her.
Carrigher describes the life of the child surviving a psychopathic mother with clinical detail and precision yet with such sensitivity that the reader feels each new shock to the emotional nervous system of the tormented child.
Childhood Horrors Relived in Book
However, the book is no mystical expose of another victim of child abuse by an author eager to point an accusing finger at the brutal parents who beat their poor defenseless child black and blue. The beating Carrighir took as a child was more
mental than physical, and the child-victim was more than capable of defending herself by her survival instinct and her strong identity.
The horrifying episodes read more like a confession than a simple autobiography. Carrighir's intense introspection, her self-reflective observations and her observations about her environment cause the book to seem more of a psychoanalysis (she was eventually psychologically by Dr. Carl Rezn) than merely a story about a woman up in the early part of the 20th century.
POWDER VALLEY PLUNDER"
(Pocket, 75 cents) by Peter Field and
"VALLEY OF THE VANISHING MEN"
(Pocket, 75 cents) by Max Brand are two
entertainting tales of the sagebrush country.
The first is in a series that is fast-moving,
good fun; the second is by a writer who
is one of the best Western novelists of his time.
Carrighar relates the horror of her life
Paperbacks
"HOT TIMES" (Gold Medal, $1.25) by William R. Ox is an original paperback novel about the 1803s. It is set in Newark during the era of eugenial eras, just before FDR comes to power
"BRIDE OF MENACE" (Gold Medal, 93 cents) by Ami Foreman Barron is a Gothic, like Elisabeth Courtland an a self-made millionaire named Marc Barrier, a ruthless and frightening man. "Could she be falling in love with him?"
"THE DEATH OF THE FURHER" (Gold Medal, 75 cents) by Roland Puccetti is a novel that carries us back to that bunker in Berlin in the last days of World War II and to a secret laboratory and to the revelation that Hitler really didn't die at all.
"SPEAK TO ME OF LOVE" (Crest, $1.25) by Dorothy Eden, set in Victorian England, is a novel about the growth of an English merchant family over three centuries. Illustrated by Victorian London by a woman whose usual genre is the high-class Gothic.
The Latin American Studies 1974 Film Series presents
TRISTANA
Orphaned by her mother's death, Tristana (Catherine Deneuve), a young and innocent girl, moves into the house of Don Lope (Fernando Rey). her aging, corrupt guardian, an aristocratic freethinker, Don Riera, befriends and champions chademos and henchmen. He tries to be fatter toward the beloved girl, but her beauty overwhelms him, and he seduces her. Although she does not love him, Tristina willingly becomes his mistress.
direction and screen play by Luis Bunuel
FREE ADMISSION Tuesday, April 23 7:30 p.m.
"Bunel is a master moralist and ironist who, out of his withering contempt for the hypocrisies by which we all try to live . . . has constructed one of the truly formidable bodies of artistic work that this century has to offer. To it, TRISTANA is a major addition."
—Richard Schickel, Life
with a clear, almost childlike, cander that adds to the shock effect of the incidents. For example, the phrase, "It is likely that many people who seem to die natural deaths have in fact been poisoned by their families" rings through the book as it reverberated through Carrighir's mind after her mother was murdered because she couldn't eat from fear of being killed.
Kansas Union Ballroom
Yet despite the times when her mother suggested that Carrighir commit suicide so that she would cease to be a family burden, the mother is portrayed as a social charmer who had been the friend of someone who resented intensely the birth of her daughter because of the fear and pain she had to endure (the doctors had to break her cocexy, the bone at the end of the spine, in order to deliver the child). As a result of caring, Carrighir's mother rejected the child.
Carrigher, her reject, reacts family life because of a fear that her own daughter might reject her. She turned instead to the wilderness and animals, which she felt she could trust. Her experiences in the woods inspired "One Day on Beetle Rock" and "One Day at Teton Marsh," which are like written versions of Walt Disney wilderness movies.
As a writer about nature, Carrish has had to be quickly and carefully observant. His experience has resulted of a childhood of watchfulness and use of the survival instinct, an ability she has developed.
Carrighir has perfect control over her flow of words. Despite her manner of going into elaborate factual detail about her doctors and relatives—a seemingly boring book she is so accustomed to becoming as necessary to the book as they are to Carrighir's understanding of her life.
Move easier. Get help.
"Home to the Wilderness" is a quickly read book which has importance for anyone who has ever associated with someone who displays psychotic tendencies.
Carrighair's acceptance and understanding of her mother's hatred—a
that her mother's hatred was not her fault
and was totally irrational and incurable—
are essential to a book of this type,
for Carrigha makes the reader realize that
the behavior can be present in even the
most seemingly normal or charming
people.
WANTED
STUDENT SENATE TREASURER
... Are you looking for a job?
... Are you looking for a job?
... Will you be in Lawrence for the summer?
... Have you had some basic accounting experience?
... Do you like to work with people?
The Student Senate will be taking applications for the position of Student Senate
for the 74-17s school year, Sign up in room 104-B, Kansas Union, before
April 1.
WE HAVE A ROOM FOR YOU IN THIS BEAUTIFUL MANSION
Air Conditioned
Co-Ed Living (Separate Floor)
Spend your summer in comfortable and attractive surroundings. Check out the benefits that we have to offer.
-air conditioning
-close to campus
-athletic field
-basketball court
-large sundek
-plenty of parking
-kitchens available
-campus recreation
-recreation area
-2 acres of grassy law
-quiet study areas
-coed living; girls top floor;
guys first floor
-two month lease, June 5-August
-375 a month, 1-3 persons per room
-weight room
-chairmar grill
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MRS. MASTIN 843-5673
12:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.
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