tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post112153352987665829..comments2024-03-28T08:37:58.136+01:00Comments on Limited, Inc.: five hundred years of madnessRoger Gathmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1121614283732615112005-07-17T17:31:00.000+02:002005-07-17T17:31:00.000+02:00Suggestive remarks. Beckett got from Joyce the cyc...Suggestive remarks. Beckett got from Joyce the cyclical view of history and narrative, and certainly Leopold Bloom is a great spiraler and forager. And then there are Molloy's sucking stones:<BR/><BR/>"I took advantage of being at the seaside to lay in a store of <BR/>sucking-stones. They were pebbles but I call them stones. Yes, on <BR/>this occasion I laid in a considerable store. I distributed them <BR/>equally between my four pockets, and sucked them turn and turn <BR/>about. This raised a problem which I first solved in the following <BR/>way. I had say sixteen stones, four in each of my four pockets these <BR/>being the two pockets of my trousers and the two pockets of my <BR/>greatcoat. Taking a stone from the right pocket of my greatcoat, and <BR/>putting it in my mouth, I replaced it in the right pocket of my <BR/>greatcoat by a stone from the right pocket of my trousers, which I <BR/>replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my trousers, which I <BR/>replaced by a stone from the left pocket of my greatcoat, which I <BR/>replaced by the stone which was in my mouth, as soon as I had <BR/>finished sucking it. Thus there were still four stones in each of my <BR/>four pockets, but not quite the same stones. And when the desire to <BR/>suck took hold of me again, I drew again on the right pocket of my <BR/>greatcoat, certain of not taking the same stone as the last time. <BR/>And while I sucked it I rearranged the other stones in the way I <BR/>have just described. And so on."Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1121604487186838152005-07-17T14:48:00.000+02:002005-07-17T14:48:00.000+02:00Or there's the spiraling in Beckett's Unnameable, ...Or there's the spiraling in Beckett's <I>Unnameable</I>, where Mahood (is it) spirals outwards for years, and theb tightens inwards for years. I read somewhere recently, though, that animals forage in the mathematically most efficient manner, and I wonder whether a blindfold tendency to spiral (in humans) doesn't indicate such a tendency. Handedness would make you spiral in the direction of maximal readiness to respond. Do the blind spiral?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com