ATDTDA (2): Lew Basnight /original sin
Joseph T
brook7 at sover.net
Thu Feb 8 23:08:18 CST 2007
On Feb 9, 2007, at 12:00 AM, Joseph T wrote:
> bingo. That certainly resonates for me. Its like the raw deal
> you're trying to get away from, but carrying with you. I also have
> a sense of a very strong connection between the original sin story
> and marriage.
>
> The detective story is an American invention starting with Poe
> (though it seems to me that Greek tragedy is often a kind of
> detection story of a soul) and the appeal of the genre is most
> obviously about the "scientific" resolution of a crime against the
> social order. It confirms the importance of law, and of the pursuit
> of truth. In that way it is reassuring. But what is the role of
> Detective when the social order itself is contaminated by
> criminality as it generally is? Many Pynchon characters are in the
> mode of Detectives facing this dilemma. V, Lot 49 especially.
>
> Anyway what makes a good detective good, what makes them see the
> telling detail, hear the truth unspoken? Are they trying to
> reassemble the broken shards of something. Are they people who
> focus all their attention on the crimes in the world to avoid their
> own troubling unsolved mysteries? Is that why we read books? Or is
> it more like jesus said that answers come to everyone who dares to
> ask questions.
> His seems like a quite opposite admonition than the one to not eat
> of a certain tree. As Twain observed, shoulda told'em not to eat
> the snake.
>
> Original sin. What a weird deal. How did snakes trees nudists and
> forbidden fruit lead to Iraq?
> Sorry about this rambling set of riddles.
>
>
> On Feb 8, 2007, at 11:39 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
>> Does anyone else think of the religious concept of Original Sin
>> when they
>> hear of Lew's 'unknown sin"?
>>
>> Joseph T <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>> I was struck by the similarity of the words truth and troth, both of
>> which Lew seems to be trying to escape, though he can't remember the
>> "truth" about himself that got him in trouble, and his desire to
>> reconcile with Troth is iffy. Hard boiled detectives are never
>> married
>> ( many ex's but few nows), actually very few fictional detectives
>> are.
>> On Feb 7, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Tim Strzechowski wrote:
>>
>> > Worst of all, Lew's adored young wife, Troth, when she found his
>> > breezy note, headed straight for the interurban and up to Chicago
>> > [...] (p. 38).
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > troth (trĂ´th, trth, trth)
>> > n.
>> > 1.
>> > a. Betrothal.
>> > b. One's pledged fidelity.
>> > 2. Good faith; fidelity.
>> > tr.v. trothed, troth·ing, troths
>> > To pledge or betroth.
>> >
>> > [Middle English trouthe, trothe, variant of treuthe, from Old
>> > English trowth, truth; see deru- in Indo-European roots.]
>> >
>> > http://www.thefreedictionary.com/troth
>> >
>> > http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/troth
>> >
>> >
>> > Umm . . . also see:
>> >
>> > http://www.thetroth.org/
>> >
>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troth
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 8:00? 8:25? 8:40? Find a flick in no time
>> with theYahoo! Search movie showtime shortcut.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20070209/62147f82/attachment.html>
More information about the Pynchon-l
mailing list