Jumbled Thoughts Falling Into Place

Thomas Pynchon’s “Entropy” reads as a collegiate anecdote with the rambles of Kerouac and the refinement of Fitzgerald. By comparing and contrasting two very different settings, Pynchon examines public and private spheres in a physical sense as well as a social analysis. He carefully assembles the initial party scene with delicate allusions to his finer taste (exclusive LPs and cannabis sativa) among strews of passed out girls. I imagine Meatball's shabby apartment occupied by drugs, bottles, and grad students; an intellectual bender in which beatniks sport horn-rimmed glasses and talk physics. From here, he moves to a quieter realm: Callisto’s sanctuary upstairs. Intensive attention to detail creates a fine balance of feng shui central to Callisto’s need for absolute harmony: “Hermetically sealed, it was a tiny enclave of regularity in the city’s chaos, alien to the vagaries of the weather, of national politics, of any civil disorder. Through trial-and-error Callisto had perfected its ecological balance, with the help of the girl its artistic harmony, so that the swayings of its plant life, the stirrings of its birds, and human inhabitants were all as integral as the rhythms of a perfectly-executed mobile.”  Ironically, Castillo’s perfectly-crafted world depends on the unpredictable forces of nature (birds and plants) and mankind (himself and Aubade): “He and the girl could no longer, of course, be omitted from that sanctuary; they had become necessary to its unity. … They could not go out.” According to the laws of thermodynamics, this man-made ecosystem could not remain in perpetual balance unscathed by outside forces. Eventually, Castillo’s entire world would implode in spite of his countless efforts to maintain it. As Meatball's party raged into its 41st hour, the slowing heartbeat of a dying bird one floor above determines the final state of whirling matter. Objects remain at rest as Aubade's fistfuls of broken glass bring the outside world into focus and, "the hovering, curious dominant of their separate lives should resolve into a tonic of darkness and the final absence of all motion."

"Lady Lazarus": She Got Knocked Down, But She Got Up Again
     Considering Sylvia Plath's personal life was punctuated by bouts of depression, her 1965 poem reads like continually crashing and calming tidal waves. The overwhelming theme of death and rebirth manifests into several references ("Nazi lampshade", Jesus miraculously raising Lazarus from the dead, and concentration camps to name a few). Although she speaks prominently as she-Lazarus, Plath beautifully incorporates other allusions to paint the picture of her soul's ongoing cycle of death and rebirth.  

     From start to finish, "Lady Lazarus" packs solid defiance. The use of consonance reads with steady rhythm and percussive slam poetry; each syllable sings proudly with profound meaning as I imagine Ms. Plath throwing down at a slam session. The tough layers of punchy syllables appropriate struggle and the determination needed to rise again. The seventh stanza, "And I am a smiling woman," brings the poem into instant focus: we have now entered the No Spin Zone as Plath lays it out sardonically and without remorse. From here, each rise and fall chronicles the defining scars that strengthen and define for better or for worse. Grand empowerment merely mocks the constant threat of death that lurks in each stanza with the martyrdom of a Holocaust survivor: "And there is a charge, a very large charge / For a word or a touch / Or a bit of blood / Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. / So, so, Herr Doktor. / So, Herr Enemy. / I am your opus, / I am your valuable, / The pure gold baby." Finally, the last great struggle presents itself through fiery resurrection, much like a phoenix as Plath burns and rises again out the ashes. 
 

"Harlem" circa 1951
Langston Hughes' "Harlem" seemingly embodies the realm of possibility expressed throughout the Harlem Renaissance. By opening with the vast question, "What happens to a dream deferred?", Hughes addresses the unheard hopes and dreams of millions of disenfranchised African Americans. To this, he considers the diverse possibilities of wavering hope with concrete, visual language ("like a raisin in the sun", "like a syrupy sweet"). Abrupt punctuation creates urgency and excitement in dreaming up hopeful circumstance. Such stream of consciousness ebbs and flows between very bad and too good to be true until settling on an abstract reality: "Or does it explode?" In many ways, "Harlem" continually breathes the vibrant, new energy expressed during the Harlem Renaissance, empowering readers and instilling hope in the individual. Although I am immediately reminded of characters struggling to find a voice in "Raisin in the Sun", I believe Hughes was challenging his readers to seek empowerment in possibility. 

Lyrical Comparison: “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”

            Upon first reading “The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter”, I was immediately reminded of an Iron and Wine song entitled “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” (whose lyrics are posted below thanks to www.azlyrics.com). Much like Pound, song writer Sam Beam chronicles the forceful push to grow up and questions where that push may lead. Lines, “Have I found you? Or lost you?” similarly depict uncertainty in a looming relationship each character cannot let go of. Also, each work romanticizes the past with deep feeling while bleakly cursing the present.

“Flightless Bird American Mouth” - Iron and Wine

I was a quick-wit boy

Diving too deep for coins

All of your street light eyes

Wide on my plastic toys

Then when the cops closed the fair

I cut my long baby hair

Stole me a dog-eared map

And called for you everywhere

Have I found you?

Flightless bird, jealous, weeping

Or lost you?

American mouth

Big pill looming

Now I'm a fat house cat

Nursing my sore blunt tongue

Watching the warm poison rats

Curl through the wide fence cracks

Pissing on magazine photos

Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean

Blood of Christ mountain stream

Have I found you?

Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding

Or lost you?

American mouth

Big pill, stuck going down

            

            In both pieces, the theme of deeply held nostalgia runs rampant, saturating the words in empty discomfort. “River-Merchant’s Wife” directly addresses her absent other half, telling the story of their life together. The first stanza beautifully depicts their carefree childhood colored by life’s simple joys and enlivened by young imagination: “I played about the front gate, pulling flowers. / You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse.” Pound portrays the youth as “Two small people, without dislike or suspicion” to embody innocence that knows no hatred. These early memories build a nostalgic foundation for their impending relationship.

            The next stanza abruptly shifts the mood from carefree adolescence to forced adulthood of dreaded obligation. It seems the speaker and her childhood friend are arranged to be married at the tender age of fourteen. Once free of responsibility, they are now slapped with the burden of marriage and may only dream of their younger days. Such a serious life change seems to awkwardly stiffen what was once an easy relationship. However, the river-merchant’s wife decides to take change into stride and find love when, “At fifteen I stopped scowling.” From this point, she seems to be swept into feelings of love…perhaps puppy love. Pound’s repetition of the word “forever” in line twelve portrays her lasting naivety and aching need for permanence.

            Despite this need, she is abandoned by her love, bringing the readers up to date. For five months, she has been painfully counting the days and taking solace (well, sort of) in the natural beauty reminiscent of childhood. The last stanza is, to me, the most strikingly beautiful as the lost soul is surrounded by nature’s dying splendor. From the prematurely falling leaves to “the paired butterflies already yellow with August”, the natural world further isolates the speaker’s agonizing loss and desperate yearning for familiarity. The simple line, “They hurt me. I grow older,” plainly states the meaning of previously flowery words as she simply begs her other half to come home.