The Quest and the Grail

[Terrance]

Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> Where did the idea come from P doesn't accept an exalted state. I
> thought this was something he accepted almost to a fault. The
> possibility of a Utopia out there somewhere. If P can be considered "a
> corrupter of youth" it would be  in egging youth on to believe things can
> be really good again if only they can get rid of ... I personally think
> this charge of contributing to the deliquency of minors is totally
> overblown. Youth will have their revolutions without P's aid. It's
> oedipal, among other things.

Agreed, I'm sorry, I mixed your comments with Richards. 

Richard wrote: 

"I would say that Pynchon doesn't necessarily accept the
idea of an exalted 
state, but that he probes what mankind has driven itself to,
based on that 
supposed goal.  Many of his characters have such
aspirations, but at what 
price:  Pokler's naivete, Weissman's brutal aesthetics,
Frenesi's dream of 
living outside the system, e.g."

> 
> > I disagree with Paul. It does
> > matter. Irony doesn't explain it away.
> 
> I probably didn't express myself clearly enough. Too telegraphic
> again. The "it doesn't matter" referred exclusively to P's possible
> negative feelings on the baby Jesus story or the nativity myth. As Vaska
> says many Catholics resent the little tyke. What's more Catholic
> theologians may resent him as well.  The nativity story, the Virgin Birth,
> the Immaculate Conception are strickly side court issues relative to
> Center Court Redemption, Justification, and Salvation. Perhaps Church
> Fathers might have been a little more ruthless in red pencilling out
> nonessential pagan holdovers. Of course Western Civilization would
> have been different story without the Cult of the Virgin. We'll never know
> how different.
> 
>                         P.


But the fact that the church fathers were not more ruthless
in red pencilling out (and Catholics have more of these
pagan holdovers, I think this is an important point and I'll
address it later) makes all the difference as in your
example of the cult of the Virgin.