Bravo, David. I think your analysis of the "winter approaching" symbolism
on page two is quite good. It makes sense of the over-ripe fruit
description by putting it in context with the rest of the seasonal
symbolism. I'd like to pursue a little symbol interpretation as well,
playing off one of the comments at the end of your post.
At 02:16 PM 5/14/2000 -0600, David Buchanan wrote:
>Not too co-incidentally, Orion is a mythological hunter who is said to have
>impregnated hundreds or thousands of women. And Rigel is a bright star
>within the constellation of Orion. So, of course, the whole thing is about
>biological quality.
I'd like to pursue this one a bit. Your message prompted me to do a bit of
looking and I turned up with a quite a different slant on Orion.
Here's what Pirsig says:
"Up there were stars, framed by the hatch opening so that they seemed to
move when the boat rocked. Part of Orion momentarily disappeared, then
appeared again. Soon all the winter constellations would be back."
*Lila*
Orion is coming back.
Who is Orion?
Orion is the hunter:
"He was such a good hunter that he was hired by the king Oenopion to kill
the ferocious beasts that were terrifying the habitants of the island
Chios. Happy for his success, Orion said he would kill all the wild animals
on the earth. But the earth goddess Gaia, who was the mother of all
animals, was not pleased with Orion's intention."
<http://windows.ivv.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/tour.cgi?link=/mythology/orion.html&cdp=/windows3.html&cd=false&frp=/windows3.html&fr=f&sw=false&edu=mid>
Orion is the hunter, a hunter so good he could destroy all earth's animals.
But the Greeks weren't the only ones who saw Orion in the night sky:
"In much of the Middle East he was the "Giant" or the "Strong One".
<http://www.iac.es/galeria/slouren/orion.html>
Orion is the Giant.
The Giant is coming!
I think the appearance of Orion in the sky foreshadows Pirsig's exploration
of the Giant as Society in Chapter 17 during his trip to New York City. I
haven't heard the stories about Orion's biological side, impregnating all
of those women. That may be so, but the connections I've unearthed link him
more closely with Society than Biology. Orion is the hunter, he kills
animals, suppressing biology. As Pirsig explains in Chapter 12, Society's
role is likewise the suppression of Biology. A second confirmation of the
connection comes from Rigel. Rigel is one of the brighter stars in the
constellation Orion, forming one of the hunter's legs. Throughout *Lila*,
the character Rigel is always the strong supporter of Society. This second
connection is the one that cinches it for me. Rigel proceeds from Orion,
and carries the Giant's point of view--all of those Victorian social
values--throughout the book.
I won't comment on the Giant any more because the idea doesn't emerge until
Chapter 17, but I think this lone mention of Orion, the one winter
constellation Pirsig singles out, is his way of introducing the theme
symbolically in Chapter 1.
The Giant is coming ...
Cheers,
Keith
______________________________________________________________________
Keith A. Gillette <http://ninepatch.net/gillette/>
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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