GRGR(24): Tchitcherine, Wimpe, Marxism, and you

[Paul Mackin]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Terrance wrote:

> 
> 
> Paul Mackin wrote:
> > 
> > Well, except for a slight problem, I would have said Vasclav was merely
> > alluding to dialectical materialist thinking under which any
> > intentionality  behind an historically significant act (that which might
> > occupy 'the time between' and could be pure or impure) is
> > irrelevant.  Only the significant action itself (say, the blowing up of
> > the bridge that saved the battalion) has meaning.
> 
> Right, that seems right to me. 
> 
> 
> > 
> > Problem is, why does Vasclav expressly deny the Marxist angle and
> > seemingly putting it into the realm of subjectivity? Reverting to
> > bourgeois morality.
> > 
> > Dunno.
> > 
> >                 P.
> 
> 
> Not sure what you are saying here Paul, could you explain.
> Is it the comment, "No. Real to himself" GR.702.6, That you
> are referring to when you say the realm of subjectivity? 

Yes. My wording was bad in that it sounded like I was objecting to
Tchicherine's subjectivity and quite human desire to live. My only
perplexity  was the seeming contradiction between what sounded like pure
Marxist thinking and T's answer of 'No' to the W's question 'Real
to a Marxist?"

What you say about P's smashing dialectical history may be true. I would
certainly agree with the position. I believe the System will always win.
Doesn't sound like T is quite convinced however. Will try to think it
through.

		P. 


> If so, I think part of the answer might be Death. Two
> things, first, Pynchon is smashing dialectal History (Marx
> and Co.) again, and two,  Tchicherine has had a death bed
> conversion [GR.704], only he's not a god fearing man now,
> he's a death fearing, no, not fearing, denying man. Only,
> not that there is "life after death", but another opiate,
> another comfort "in the dialectical ballet of force,
> counterforce, collision, AND NEW ORDER (my caps)." Tch's
> Theory of History, is "the cold comforts" Tch has  exchanged
> for "a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage" of
> Marxist opium, or Oneirine, a haunting denial of Death. 
> 
> To tie it back, we can say that the "other" 
> 
> (Tch. has an other, a half black brother, Enzian, the half
> black "brother" of Slothrop)
> 
>  embodies or carries those aspects of human experience that
> are either "successfully" repressed or to which human
> consciousness has submissively abandoned itself. 
> 
>  Enzian is the "black version of something inside of himself
> [GR.499] that Tch needs to liquidate, Exlax, oh, no, yes,
> the intestinal oven where death is quite literally in life,
> a situation we discover is reversed in the novel in
> Slothrop's Schwartzphanomen, which as Tch says,
> "choreographs [Slothrop]" with unyielding discipline and
> control.  
> 
> "Mine's always trying to destroy me. We should be exchanging
> those, instead of uniforms." [GR.513]
>