Christian ideas refracted thru AtD: 1) Forgiveness (spoilers galore)

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

sorry to post again so soon, but I can't wait to see how this one gets mangled. how can i get rid of all that &nbsp dreck but keep 80 character lines?

Central Christian virtue: forgiveness

AtD contains an extended meditation on revenge. As the guy said in Fight Club, "How's that working for you?"
It's not just a patriarchal phallologocentric thing: Mayva's into it too. 

For Webb, it messes up his family life (he even mentions that post-mortem, channeled through Reef.) Also, he never has time to think.
This means he doesn't have time to develop his utopian ideas, but instead develops destructive talents more in keeping with the capitalism he's fighting -- and maybe has never figured out that his violent actions provoke and are used to excuse the escalations of the capitalists. He's shocked when he learns that they use his chosen weapon.

As for the rest of the family it seems to me they are given time to think things over, and prosper to the extent that they give up on revenge.

"Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord" and for once, I find this Old Testament precept complements nicely the New Testament commandment to forgive. It will be taken care of (as also per Jesse's Emerson quote in Vineland) -- meanwhile, if we can interact kindly we may even make of our enemy a friend and find a way for them to clear their karma, which in turn may help us to avoid our own bad karma...contrast that with creating more bad karma by insisting on revenge -- Jesus was a genius!

Lake's sexual connection to Deuce sidesteps the issue of forgiveness, though her actions walk pretty far along the path of forgiveness. In the end his own actions (refracted as they may be from the mysterious crime Lew Basnight committed way back in Chicago?) lead to his downfall.

Frank doesn't derive any particular satisfaction from killing Sloat, or for that matter from blowing up the train. When he breaks with the revolutionists, it only means "a few more beans for somebody else" -- the flat affect emanating from that interpretation indicates he's moved on, that continuing these hostilities just doesn't make emotional sense to him.

Reef's notion of revenge is too diffuse, and defused by his own proficiency in sex, gambling and style, to become a way of life. That he should end up with Yashmeen is in a way a travesty - her mathematical talent passed over -- and in some pseudo-psychological way I'm tempted to see the Goettingen scenes as a way for Pynchon to glance down the road of math that he didn't take. I wouldn't think he'd have a lot of regrets, as what he turned his hand to has thriven mightily. But I'd have liked to see Kit & Yashmeen hook up...(my own jealousy of Reef, who is cooler and gets more action than I, comes into play here) However, some semblance of stability and gaining of emotional depth for Reef, and the (for me anyway) very affecting triangle with Cyprian does compensate. 

Poor Cyprian internalizes forgiveness -- turning the other (butt) cheek, enjoying the pain, sexualizing the humiliation, all that stuff. I'm not really into that, but I'm close enough to being into it that I really enjoyed the description. That is, I've tasted enough abuse in my life that I've wondered whether I do have a taste for it, for it to happen to me so much - though by most standards I've had it pretty easy...but anyway...

Kit - I haven't begun to assimilate what all happens to him at the end. However, Foley Walker's eventual disposal of Scarsdale Vibe is another instantiation of the principle that victims needn't retaliate. And moreover, Kit's math genius dwindles after his final interview with Vibe. I see that as, he can't get beyond the tainted nature of the arrangement, and since he's preoccupied with that he doesn't have time to think. Also I think that in Vibe's office, he thinks he's totally concealing his resolution to get even, but I got the distinct feeling that he wasn't...I wonder if anything in the text supports that...

 Mayva's desire for revenge really comes from loyalty to Webb. But in her own right, she's been a Bible-thumper all along (like DL's mom in Vineland) and makes her own accommodation with the bourgeoisie. I suspect but have no textual evidence that the ice cream parlor might have been a victim of her occasionally NOT swallowing retorts and eating crow...but it may have been that a maid gig just is less wearisome than owning a small business. She knows her desire for revenge is a sin, but she doesn't turn from what she considers to be the source of forgiveness...

Foley Walker and Scarsdale Vibe: wow! There's your Iceland Spar effect... Vibe reflects the intransigence of the Rockefellers -- those bastids actually ruined or co-opted the mine owners who had settled with the union, and brought the militant arm of the government in on something that should have been settled in courtrooms and meetings. (so in a way Webb's implacable hatred reflects Vibe's implacable bastardly greed)

But Foley Walker's assuming Vibe's identity -- and really it is he who does practice Christian outreach, since the scholarship for Kit and the prescient stock tips are his ideas, which stem from voices he hears rather than logical analysis -- being as one might say a forgiving victim, since he bore for Vibe numerous pains and cared for him, a friend closer than a brother. Forgiving 70 times 7. And perhaps Walker is like the imaginary dude in Fight Club...hmmmm......but in any case, he saves Frank from blood-guilt, and (perhaps) assumes the rest of Vibe's identity...

Is how it lines up for me...


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