karmic debt

[Doug Millison]

Barbara,

Your thoughtful post on karmic debt reminds me of that karmic readjustment
concept that Pynchon riffs on in Vineland.

Here's some stuff that I included in the Commentary I wrote for the session
I hosted in the VLVL discussion of Vineland a couple of years ago (there
are even some references to M&D, so it's not hopelessly off topic with
regard to the current MDMD):

"Takeshi the _ronin_ is a hustler, nowhere more clearly than in the business
("like insurance -- only different!") he devises when he see an unfilled
market niche, an unmet need for speeded-up karmic adjustments. He manages
to commodify what? A longing for justice that -- unless simply forgiven and
forgotten -- must extend beyond the frame of death because it will
necessarily go unsatisfied in this life. But is Takeshi really helping them
with his services, the way the Puncutron seems has been effective in
neutralizing DL's Death Touch? Is Takeshi helping the Thanatoids move
beyond, further into death and what comes next, or is he keeping them stuck
in their desires for revenge and their resentments to milk them for more
payments? In this respect is he like the Dixon who cheerfully surveys and
thus speeds Enclosure and its attendant ills? Like the Dixon who exploits
the dusky native girls, unaware of - or unwilling to admit -- his place in
the system that makes them available to him for exploitation? (Takeshi's
habit of getting a hard-on in life-threatening situations seems a clear
distinction for the perhaps less-sexually-sophisticated Dixon.)  [Note
added on 30 Nov 01:  this quality also might be seen to link Takeshi to
Slothrop]

"But, even as he builds his hustle into a thriving business, Takeshi can't
avoid growing up at least somewhat. He realizes he's onto a good thing with
DL, moving towards life and away from the death (progress indeed for a man
who started his adult life as a kamikaze pilot) in which he can't quite
believe but which he knows is there. In the meantime, there is joy for the
taking in the simple fact of relationship with DL: "He wasn't sure this
might not be her real mission - to make of his life a koan, or unsolvable
Zen puzzle, that would send him purring into transcendence." He even
manages to move beyond his previously irresistable urge to snatch her,
well, you know, and get to know her as a person. (Can't help but wonder how
much of Pynchon's own love story might be reflected here - idle speculation
indeed.) DL pulls him up from his cartoon depths to help him emerge as more
of a recognizable human being - quite recognizable, in fact, in the
Northern California landscape of used-car salesmen turned personal growth
gurus, some of whom in person offer not even the depths and doubts with
which Pynchon has endowed Takeshi. [...]

"The Kunoichi Attententives with their Punctutron bring Takeshi back to
life, just as Dr. Frankenstein's apparatus revivifies the stitched-together
pieces of his creation. Takeshi unwittingly returns the favor, offering DL
the opportunity -- through the right action of devoting herself to helping
Takeshi -- to re-integrate the scattered fragments of herself (another
opportunity drops in DL's lap when Prairie enters her life), or, as they
say at 12-step meetings (which those Thanatoid therapy sessions may
parody), "God can't fix me until I bring him all the pieces." [...]

"They [the Thanatoids]  flock to Takeshi's "karmology hustle", apparently
seduced by the
promise of being able to somehow cheat Death, get on a fast-track to the
promised pie in the sky and advance to the next level - it seems to be
enough to woo many of them away from the Tube and an endless stream of
wishful thinking re-runs where love wins against Death. Will they truly
advance under Takeshi's tutelage? Or will they nurse their resentments in
therapy and play at revenge with a  joystick,  make their phony progress,
level to level, by manipulating Mario to foil Death's  Ape, rescue the
Toadstool Princess (when they - fools!-- could be out collecting and
ingesting inspirational fungi in the Seventh River woods instead!), do the
Mario victory dance, and start all over again, still captives of the Tube?
Will they finally graduate, or will they merely imitate Takeshi, moving up
and down the elevator but never really getting out of his Haru no Depaato
box. [...]

"171.3 "Depending how desparate a sitcom viewer might be feeling, even this
could have been marginally interesting had Thanatoids not long ago learned,
before the 24-hour cornucopia of video, to limit themselves, as they
already did in other areas, only to emotions helpful in setting right
whatever was keeping them from advancing further into the condition of
death. Among these the most common by far was resentment, constrained as
Thanatoids were by history and by rules of imbalance and restoration to
feel little else beyond their needs and revenge." -- So, nursing
resentments and a desire for revenge prevents them from "advancing further
into the condition of death".  Are the Thanatoids trying to work through
these emotions in order to move on fully into death, or do they nurse these
emotions to prevent that move? Does this passage suggest that Thanatoids
limit themselves to Tube programming that reinforces their resentments and
desires for revenge? Is the Tube helping them forestall that advance
further into the condition of death? Why not just let go, be fully dead,
and see what comes next? And how does this relate to Takeshi's rather murky
practice of karmic adjustment?

"171.24 "you're part Thanatoid yourself, ain't you, Mister."  -- And ain't
we all? Constantly moving in that direction, at least, despite Takeshi's
retrograde striving. All the more striking given his kamikaze background,
which tends, necessarily, towards death. (See Mishima's _Sun and Steel_ for
a powerful look at what a young Japanese boy's longing to be a kamikaze can
lead to.)  Whether his near-constant pursuit of pussy and pep pills adds up
to death wish or just grabbing for the gusto - you be the judge! [...]

"173.12 "They were victims, he explained, of karmic imbalances -- unanswered
blows, unredeemed suffering, escapes by the guilty -- anything that
frustrated their daily expeditions on into the interior of Death, with
Shade Creek a psychic jumping-off town -- behind it, unrolling, regions
unmapped, dwelt in by these transient souls in constant turnover, not
living but persisting, on the skimpiest of hopes?"
One question:  given this definition, how can you tell the difference
between a Thanatoid and a live human being, other than the Thanatoid
neglect of possessions other than the Tube? This passage also reminds me of
the lawyer in _The Sweet Hereafter_, offering his clients the promise of
somehow making things right and being able to move on; left inconclusive in
the movie is whether or not that's possible. [...]



More generally, I haven't found anything in your posts to be offensive --
certainly not in comparison to a lot of what gets posted here.  It always
surprises me how selective people can be when they choose to criticize one
instead of another P-lister, choosing to zero in on one person and ignoring
the egregious things said by others.   But I guess it's just human to play
favorites.  I've learned on the P-list, a few people will just naturally
(it seems) take a dislike to the tone or content or approach of somebody
who posts frequently, and they won't be able to explain that dislike in any
kind of concrete way, even in cases where the parties actually agree on
issues of substance, even when what the despised one has actually written
contradicts the despiser's statements about the despised one (no, I'm not
going to go back and untangle that) -- emotion seems to get in the way of
actually registering the details of what one's interlocutor actually says
in these flamefests, I'm afraid.    I've been guilty of that myself, so the
least I can do is to try to understand when others express that kind of
frustration.

Big full moon out there tonight, with rain on the way.

Nice to have you aboard,
Doug





Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com