GRGR (15): Good & Evil (was Enzian...)

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 12 Dec 1999, Terrance F. Flaherty wrote:
> >
> > Pederasty is quite common in Pynchon's fiction. Who are the
> > men and who are the children? Does this tell us anything?
> >
> 
> I can't confirm that it is quite common. Haven't read the books
> recently enough I guess. Perhaps however I am overlooking certain
> occurences  for the simple reason that they are not very memorable. But
> how can actions we are so conditioned to abhor NOT be memorable? Maybe
> because there isn't a great  deal of carry over. Ruined lives, that sort
> of thing. We are not made acutely aware of the damage caused. Or if there
> IS carry over it is carry over of the wrong kind. The actuality of the
> event is undermined, even turned into a joke. Soon we expect this kind of
> betrayal. We grow to love it. It is Pynchon's way. But it does not promote
> any kind of BELIEF. There can be no sense of evil if we cannot accept the
> fictional goings on as REAL.


Maybe we are not conditioned to find these acts abhorrent,
perhaps the fact that young children need to be protected is
not conditioned but innate? But this doesn't really make a
difference as far I am concerned, but since we are having a
good and evil discussion I see no reason
why we can't have the old dog teaching itself new tricks, 
chasing its own tail
discussion of nature and nurture. Just kidding.


 There are several examples of adults who prey on children
in Pynchon, in V. there are several examples, Brock Vond is
another good example, and Pynchon in VL follows the pattern
he has here GR and in V.,  in that he goes after his
political targets and
critiques the culture at large with "perverse" sexual acts.
True, 
Brock's sex is complicated---"Mad Woman in the attic," and
Frenesi, and all the revolutionaries are children--"an army
of lovers"--- that he needs to beat, but he likes little
girls and like Pointsman in GR, he is the character that
wants to control History, to determine the future.

Pynchon will mix incest and other abuses of children.
Remember Melanie (l'Heuremaudit, stage name Jarretiere--the
garter, the human fetish) in V.? Reminds me of Enzian and
Gottfried in some ways. She was abandoned by her mother, had
sex with her father and she is involved in a
voyeuristic-lesbian relationship with V.  Speaking of
Voyeurs, remember Pynchon's great short story in the novel
V.--Mondaugen's Story? Mondaugen goes into "mirror-time" and
guess what's there? Nostalgia for the genocide of 1904. In
the mirror, in the vouyeur's dreams (vouyeur's dreams are
not their own) Weissman visits him during sickness and
declares that he has interpreted the sferics, "Die Welt ist
Alles Was der Fall ist" the facts, the amoral facts of the
Seige Party--a wild Fasching, with murder and sadism. 
Facts, quality is besides the point, moral judgments are not
part of the case, events are random, they simply occur, and
their meaning exists only in their facts, in their actual
occurrence. No ethics, no meaning.  In this world, Benny is
a mock Prometheus, a mock Job, he can't deal with people or
things, he has trouble figuring the people from the things,
so he pisses on the sun, ha, ha. Black humor, apocalyptic
humor. Remember in the Luddite essay Pynchon defends certain
"genres" and certain novels, he is really defending his own
books, are they simply "escapist fare"?


"But the world isn't like that." These genres, by insisting
on what is contrary to fact, fail to be Serious enough, and
so they get redlined under the label "escapist fare."				Is
it OK to be a Luddite? 


> 
> Someone is certain to bring up the historic evil we have been having
> impressed upon us nonstop over the past fifty years. This context will
> admittedly affect how we experience the fictional reality. But it is not
> what we principally need in order to BELIEVE in the fictional reality, or
> to believe in the evil.
> 
> Pynchon is not the place to exercise one's good and evil receptors, IMHO.
> 
>                         P.
> 
>