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

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

jporter wrote:
> 
> >jporter wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello Terry. You said:
> >>
> >> >What are you both saying here? In the novel these constitute
> >> >mere play of the imagination. I might agree with this
> >> >statement, but I don't know what you are talking about. It's
> >> >not evil because it's in a novel? OK, I agree with that, if
> >> >that's it?
> >>
> >> Speaking only for myself here, that's partly it. The novel is very good.
> >> The characters are complex and for me, it does the work a disservice to
> >> reduce any of them to "good" or "evil." These conceptual terms may have
> >> some abstract meaning, but the characters have enough complexity and
> >> multi-dimensionality to be more than that. Pulling a particular example out
> >> of the work and testing it for "goodness" or "evility" also, to me, seems a
> >> disservice to the work as a whole.
> >>
> >> Hope that helps,
> >>
> >> jody
> >
> >
> >Yes, that helps a lot. I read the novel very differently.
> 
> Differently than what?  "The novel is a very good book?"

I read Pynchon on one of those inversion machines they sell
on TV, that's why I'm always posting all this upside down
and inverted thoughts. Just kidding. 
> 
>  In
> >NO way do I suggest boiling the book down to a simple good
> >and evil. I know some think my reading is a disservice or
> >reductive, but it really isn't.  I too see the complexity
> >and multidimensionality, but not in the characters. I read
> >Pynchon's characters as mostly pedants, bigots, cranks,
> >parvenus, virtuosi, enthusiasts, rapacious and incompetent
> >professionals of all kinds that are often handled in terms
> >of their occupational approach to life as distinct from
> >their social behavior.
> 
> The inability to recognize the more human aspects of P.'s characterizations
> by alot of people early on always struck me as unfortunate, and at times,
> made me feel like I was odd (probably am). Iguess I tend to empathize with
> the pedants, bigots (to some extent), cranks (a whole lot), parvenus,
> virtuosi, and those rapacious and incompetent professionals. Or, at least I
> noticed a touch of those things in a whole lot of otherwise regular
> Shumans. I also thought the book was hilarious from the get go, when many
> friends put it down after a few pages, calling it boring.

I recognize the humanity of Pynchon's characters. 


> 
>  One of the ways the complexity and
> >multidimensionality is handled by Pynchon, I think, is by
> >taking abstract ideas and theories and investing them in
> >characters, for example Pavlov is obviously invested in
> >Pointsman.
> 
> Not really. Although Pointsman could be considered a Pavlovian, which seems
> to suit P.'s purposes of having the conditioned stimulus precede the
> unconditioned stimulus, until the unconditioned response becomes linked to
> the conditioned stimulus (whew), the dogmatic (no pun) approach of Pavlov
> was fairly passe by V2 time. Operant Conditioning was much more the rage.
> Skinner trained pigeons to sit in torpedoes and peck at screens displaying
> the target as their guidance device during WWII. But more to the point,
> Pavlov was not really like Pointsman, at all. He was no manipulator. He
> stood up to both Lenin and Stalin, rather courageously, and berated them,
> in public, no less, condemning the effects of communism on Russian Science
> and the Russian Intelligentsia. He certainly had his shortcomings, but he
> was no Pointsman.

I was not referring to Pavlov the man. 

> 
> And I'll see your investment of abstraction and raise you  to Quantum
> Gravity. Didn't I already do that a few weeks back? GR is good, but M&D is
> spectactular, much more finely crafted and up to date. Suits me better with
> my grey hair and all. I whined for an immediate re-reading of M&D before we
> started GR, but I was beaten down by the powers that be, who think they're
> still young.
> 
> Saying this, I don't contend that my way of
> >reading GR is best, or even advisable, but I think it is one
> >approach, one of many, one lots of people share, not many
> >active on this list, and accept as a good way to read GR.
> 
> No problem with that.
> 
> >This approach has plenty to say about the complexity and
> >multidimensionality of GR. GR has, among other
> >multiplicities, stylistic multiplicity and the philosophic
> >pluralism it implies. GR has fantasy, parody and comedy.
> >These three are essential to GR. Take any chapter and there
> >they are. GR has philosophy, intellction and encyclopedism,
> >an 'anti-book' stance, a marginal cultural position, and
> >carnivalization. In GR, this intellectual structure which is
> >built up in the story makes for violent dislocations in the
> >customary logic of narrative.
> 
> Not for me. But maybe that's because I was standing on the margins the
> first time I picked it up. Fell right into the flow. The dislocations come
> when one tries to fit the riffs into some preconceived critical framework,
> and reads with one eye and ear on what the critics are saying and the other
> on the text itself. That's like looking at Bloat's picture of Slothrop's
> map, instead of the map itself: black and white v. color.
> You come to the text too prepared with other peoples interpretations. I'm
> sure glad I've never read Weisenberger, although I might get a kick out of
> it now, after a million slug fests on the P-list. Listen to the
> narrator...psst, you can trust him, its pynchon, and he's talking to you...

Wiesenburger and others have augmented my reading, I find
that critics write beautiful stuff on Pynchon. 


> 
> Pynchon seems to be showing
> >off and careless sometimes, but in fact those silly
> >limericks and the apparent carelessness that results from
> >the dislocations are reflected back at the reader or the
> >reader's tendency to judge by a novel-centered conception of
> >fiction
> 
> Which reader is that, exactly?

Probably just me hanging upside down again. 

> 
> >and the piling up of enormous mass of erudition
> >about his theme or his overwhelming of his pedantic targets
> >with an avalanche of their own jargon is all part of his
> >satire.
> 
> Or his hook. Alot of us use that jargon day in and out, to put bread on the
> table. You'd be surprised how accurate most of it is, and strange, it
> doesn't feel all that satirical. Sometimes it's more like a nudge and a
> wink.
> 
> Sometimes it goes beyond satire, though. Satire, or it's perception can be
> last holdout of one afraid to let down their guard and be moved. Awed. But
> sometimes the vision is so beautiful, so correct, I've cried.
> 
> To me, the YOU is the most interesting,
> >multidimensional and complex person in GR and the narrators
> >in GR are more complex, multidimensional and more
> >interesting than most of the hundreds of characters in the
> >book.
> >
> >
> >Terrance
> 
> I hope you weren't offended by my using Terry before. It slipped out. Long
> lost college friend. Terrance it is then.
> 
> Goodnight,
> 
> jody


"You may call me booby, you may call ne jimmy, you may call
me elroy, you may call me Zimmy, but you still gonna serve
somebody...."