Love never goes away,Never completely dies,Always some souvenirTakes us by sad surprise.You went away from me,One rose was left behind--Pressed in my Book of Hours,That is the rose I find....Though it's another year,Though it's another me,Under the rose is a drying tear,Under my linden tree....Love never goes away,Not if it's really true,It can return, by night, by day,Tender and green and newAs the leaves from the linden tree, love,That I left with you.
-Thomas Pynchon
Pynchon is famous for the songs he embeds in his novels. Like a stage musical, people break into song at all times, sometimes motivated, but not always. Here apprentice witch Geli Tripping is accompanying herself on a balalaika when our hero (?) Tyrone Slothrop first meets her. (p.289 in my edition.) A lot of the poems/songs are contextual--whenever Major Marvy's Mothers, an American military detachment chasing Slothrop appears, they approach singing obscene limericks--but this one felt like it could stand on its own. It reminds me a bit of Heine.
Pynchon's a bit in the air these days and I'm rereading Gravity's Rainbow. I saw One Battle After Another, the new film by Paul Thomas Anderson, last night--quite good, I thought--based on Pynchon's novel Vineland. And the old wizard has a new novel out this fall, Shadow Ticket, but I haven't read it yet. How much of the old Pynchon am I going to reread before I get that? I'm not sure, but clearly some.
The post title comes from the introduction of the poem: "...Slothrop heard a girl singing. Accompanying herself on a balalaika. One of those sad little Parisian-sounding tunes in 3/4..."
Rereading?! I'm impressed! I tried reading this way back, when I was wholly unprepared to do so, and I've never yet gotten back to it (although the past couple of years I've managed to make time for more long books like it, so it seems more of a possibility than it once did, at least). Was it the new one that took you to rereading?
ReplyDeleteThe new book & the movie prompted my rereading binge--I should get the new one from the library pretty soon.
DeleteSad, but beautifully written. I love this poem.
ReplyDeleteSomebody really ought to set it to music.
DeleteIf you want to hear a Pynchon song, in a terrific version, seek out the Insect Trust's "The Eyes of a New York Woman," lyrics from V..
ReplyDeleteThat is a good one. I don't know why there are more uses of his lyrics.
DeleteI'd completely forgotten that song!
ReplyDeleteTime for a rereread.
I had a (rather battered) first edition of GR, but I lent it to a friend who threw up over it when he came across Brigadier Pudding's nighttime adventure.
First edition, wow.
DeleteI managed to once again get past Brigadier Pudding without throwing up, but, yup, ick.
I was trying to remember what number time this was for me, but I couldn't quite figure it out.
Definitely sounds like heine
ReplyDelete