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DEEPSIX
April 06, 2022
A book that came my way randomly:
"Metropolis on the Styx" (2007)
by David L. Pike, published by UNLIKELY_PLACES
the Cornell University Press...
This is the *second* in a series of two on a theme--
the author writes about the deep significance of
basements, tunnels, undergrounds-- basically, any time
someone digs a hole he's standing there, notebook in
hand, connecting it up with modernity and mythology.
Satan is in the basement.
This is one of the most inane books
I've ever encountered: both shallow Pike leads with the old saying about
in conception and tedious in detail. the devil and the details... don't
say he has no sense of humor.
Nevertheless, it does have
something to tell us about
the modern world: you can
still get academic grants to
do work like this.
I approached this book with an open mind, if not high
hopes, but this rapidly turned into a sinking feeling,
as I read the first page of the preface: an extended
description of the basement of the author's boyhood
home in Kentucky (Spoilers: he was afraid of the old
coal cellar. Oh, and it was 'male territory', sort of.)
How low can you go, and still get tenure?
Three entries in the index for Foucault, five for
Freud, three for Heidegger. A dozen or so under None of
"science fiction", but few individual references to Jung, though...
any such works... but then this particular volume
favors references from the late 1800s, despite the And why no
subtitle suggesting it covers 1800-2001. Plato's Cave?
I find myself Comic book Oh: that's before 1800.
wondering: what hole references (Maybe that was in
can I bury this in? alone would the first volume?)
fill another
But then, what's deeper two volumes. But hang on--
underground than "the there's a mention
doomfiles"? of Plato on p. 63,
but none in the
index!
This calls everything into question-- suddenly
there's no way to know if the below ground index
reflects the above ground text, or if the subtext
of the overarching scheme relates to the repeated
suggestions of sulfurous flames permeating the
authors office and the methaphorical overeach of
the undertow of the devil darning red socks with
a freshly sharpened pitchfork, as repeatedly
hinted at in the doctrines of Manicheanism,
Zoroastrism and Fongoohism.
David L. Pike justifies his project:
"With the notable exception of Michael Taussig's
important monograph on _The Devil and Commodity
Fetishism in South America_, the vast field of Yes, yes... the
devil studies has generally had as little to say vast field of devil
about the material underground as studies of the studies. But then,
latter have had to say about the figure that was isn't it *all* devil
long considered to reign over it. [10] Finally, studies?
those studies that address both the material and
the metaphorical underground-- I am thinking here
especially of Rosalind William's _Notes of the
Underground_ and Wendy Lesser's _Life below the
Ground-- nevertheless fail to historicize their
subject beyond taking note of the sea change
brought about by the Industrial Revolution. [11]
Consequently, although they document the changes in
the response to technology and underground space
during the nineteenth century, Williams and Lesser
do not similarly historicize the imagery related to
those spaces-- in particular, the figure of the
devil." -- p. 11
So it's up to Captain Pike here to navigate the
deep sea changes of historicization to comprehensively
comprehend the compounded impact of metaphorical and
topographical pile-ups that have buried the long lost
verbification of the subjectified consciousness of
this deep subject.
Hell and the underground have officially divorced,
and yet, lurks there not still a deeper connection GOD_OF_HELL
between the two?
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