"Telemachus" question

[dontblameyoko]

so the fictional Telemachus Sneezed novel in Illuminatus...i'm not quite getting the title.  I looked up Telemachus and i'm not sure how him sneezing would be significant like Atlas shrugging....or Satan repenting...i get those two, but not Telemachus.
...or maybe it's just funny or absurd?

[Fuquad]

All three are fictional characters.

I don't see how any of them doing anything is really significant.

[the last yatto]

 Illuminatus included alot of culture references

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

so the fictional Telemachus Sneezed novel in Illuminatus...i'm not quite getting the title.  I looked up Telemachus and i'm not sure how him sneezing would be significant like Atlas shrugging....or Satan repenting...i get those two, but not Telemachus.
...or maybe it's just funny or absurd?

I assumed it was a dig at Rand, and designed to be as meaningless as possible, in satire of "Atlas Shrugged", but in a form of trivializing satire that was popular at the time and is no longer widely used.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

so the fictional Telemachus Sneezed novel in Illuminatus...i'm not quite getting the title.  I looked up Telemachus and i'm not sure how him sneezing would be significant like Atlas shrugging....or Satan repenting...i get those two, but not Telemachus.
...or maybe it's just funny or absurd?

I assumed it was a dig at Rand, and designed to be as meaningless as possible, in satire of "Atlas Shrugged", but in a form of trivializing satire that was popular at the time and is no longer widely used.

TITCM, I think...

It works best if you read it with a bit of a sneer and loathing in your voice.

[Cain]

Yeah, RAW in particular thought Randroids were laughable, and the book is a definite dig at Atlas Shrugged and the Objectivists.  Quite a good one at that.

[hooplala]

It's also a little wink to Ulysses, by using Telemachus as the figure from legend.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Good point Hoop! I hadn't made that connection.

[dontblameyoko]

ah, thanks.

[hooplala]

in satire of "Atlas Shrugged", but in a form of trivializing satire that was popular at the time and is no longer widely used.

Nigel, could you expand on this thought?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

in satire of "Atlas Shrugged", but in a form of trivializing satire that was popular at the time and is no longer widely used.

Nigel, could you expand on this thought?

In the 60's, one of the more popular forms of satire was to mock something people took very seriously (or that took itself seriously) by making it look ridiculous. MAD Magazine presents many good examples of this; silly-looking or silly-sounding parodies of important people having very undignified problems. As a satirical form it's still around, but it's not as widely-used; I think people just burned out on it. It's basically old-timey jestering, on paper.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

in satire of "Atlas Shrugged", but in a form of trivializing satire that was popular at the time and is no longer widely used.

Nigel, could you expand on this thought?

In the 60's, one of the more popular forms of satire was to mock something people took very seriously (or that took itself seriously) by making it look ridiculous. MAD Magazine presents many good examples of this; silly-looking or silly-sounding parodies of important people having very undignified problems. As a satirical form it's still around, but it's not as widely-used; I think people just burned out on it. It's basically old-timey jestering, on paper.

Right its sort of like a shortened form of:

So what if Atlas Shrugged, Ms. Rand? I mean, for fuck's sake.. Telemachus may have sneezed and your philosophy would still be shitty. Objectivism cannot be saved by mythical characters and their occasional acts of random bodily function.

[Telarus]

http://bkmarcus.com/blog/2008/09/telemachus-sneezed

Until I started listening to Stanley Lombardo's translation of Homer's Odyssey, my primary association with the name Telemachus was from The Illuminatus! Trilogy, in which the Roberts Shea and Wilson make fun of Atlas Shrugged with a cult novel called Telemachus Sneezed. I thought that was a funny spoof title for the trippy spoof novel.

Imagine my surprise, a dozen years later, when I encounter this passage from the Odyssey, in which Penelope addresses a servant:

    "As for the suitors, let them take their pleasure indoors or out as they will, for they have nothing to fret about. Their corn and wine remain unwasted in their houses with none but servants to consume them, while they keep hanging about our house day after day sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand such recklessness, for we have now no Odysseus to protect us. If he were to come again, he and his son would soon have their revenge."

    As she spoke Telemachus sneezed so loudly that the whole house resounded with it. Penelope laughed when she heard this, and said to Eumaeus, "Go and call the stranger; did you not hear how my son sneezed just as I was speaking? This can only mean that all the suitors are going to be killed, and that not one of them shall escape.

Apparently, the ancients considered a sneeze to be a good omen.

(And, apparently, the ancients considered mass murder to make a happy ending.)

also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemachus

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

http://bkmarcus.com/blog/2008/09/telemachus-sneezed

Until I started listening to Stanley Lombardo's translation of Homer's Odyssey, my primary association with the name Telemachus was from The Illuminatus! Trilogy, in which the Roberts Shea and Wilson make fun of Atlas Shrugged with a cult novel called Telemachus Sneezed. I thought that was a funny spoof title for the trippy spoof novel.

Imagine my surprise, a dozen years later, when I encounter this passage from the Odyssey, in which Penelope addresses a servant:

    "As for the suitors, let them take their pleasure indoors or out as they will, for they have nothing to fret about. Their corn and wine remain unwasted in their houses with none but servants to consume them, while they keep hanging about our house day after day sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, and never giving so much as a thought to the quantity of wine they drink. No estate can stand such recklessness, for we have now no Odysseus to protect us. If he were to come again, he and his son would soon have their revenge."

    As she spoke Telemachus sneezed so loudly that the whole house resounded with it. Penelope laughed when she heard this, and said to Eumaeus, "Go and call the stranger; did you not hear how my son sneezed just as I was speaking? This can only mean that all the suitors are going to be killed, and that not one of them shall escape.

Apparently, the ancients considered a sneeze to be a good omen.

(And, apparently, the ancients considered mass murder to make a happy ending.)

also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemachus

Zounds! 

[Bu🤠ns]

funny, i JUST LISTENED TO THIS PART YESTERDAY. (audiobook)

also, while driving and listening to IT3 , i read a sign on a church that said, "Find order in your chaos."  with a simple cross along the left side of it. immediately after i was merging on to route 23
BRICKS WERE SHAT and i lol'd