GRGR(5): Pudding & human respect

[Lars Frehse]

Pudding pointing out something as "shabby"... Once again Pudding presents his
moralistic view of the world. A moralist who once conquered a couple of
square-feet in France with only "minimal" casualities. I think it is rather
funny.
A-and quite frankly I prefer an honest Nihilist to a Moralist.

Lars

"Terrance F. Flaherty" wrote:

> "Bitter and moldy is the 'Poor man's Pudding,' groaned I to myself, half
> choked with but one little mouthful of it, which would hardly go down."
>
> "It had yellowish crust all around it, and was rather rankish, I thought to
> the taste."
>
> ---Melville Poor man's Pudding
>
> Sexual perversions often take the form of ritual. For Pudding, it seems the
> ritual functions as expiation for his indifferent participation during WWI.
> He has learned nothing, he is "bound by nothing but his need for pain, for
> something real, something pure....no it's not guilt here...ministers,
> scientists, doctors, each with his specialized lies to tell, when she was
> here all the time, sure in her ownership of his failing body."
>
> Pudding has learned nothing, but how to eat poor man's pudding.
>
> The reversal is grotesque.
>
> Terrance
>
> Mark Wright AIA wrote:
>
> > Howdy:
> >
> > --- Lorentzen / Nicklaus <lorentzen-nicklaus at t-online.de> wrote:
> >  One of the clearest pleadings for human respect in the whole book.
> > > The
> > >  clearness of the statement is pointed out by the drama-like style of
> > > dialogue.
> > >
> > >   Why here? Why without ambivalence? Why Pudding?
> >
> > Pudding has learned something.  Recall that he saw the bond between men
> > in the trenches as noble, and retained a capacity for grief and
> > empathy, even a poetic sensibility (a la Sasoon?) in the lighted sky
> > above no-man's land.  Addlepated as he is, he hopes, as a General to
> > shepherd the only the morally pure to their deaths.  He does not want
> > the corrupt to die in battle and be damned; he wants his soldiers to
> > see paradise.  I think...
> >
> > Mark
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