CoL49: Echo & Narcissus
Mark Kohut
markekohut at yahoo.com
Sun Jan 27 15:51:52 CST 2008
Robin sends incredible "stuff"......see below
I want only to add, after reading the Echo and Narcissus myth AND Robin's theorists
of the psyche, that
1) if we all need some naricssism to be healthy adults
2) rooms, such as the one Cyprian is take to in AtD, with no echo.............
is a wonderful way to hint at having one's spirits broken, one's healthy narcissism
destroyed, one's yearning for "love'.............being destroyed by this system......
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- Original Message ----
From: "robinlandseadel at comcast.net" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 3:54:31 PM
Subject: CoL49: Echo & Narcissus
MK Ultra:
CORRECTLY......she is away from her home when she
STAYS at Echo Courts....five uses in CoL49, check
Amazon, Search Inside the book.
So, her rooms at Echo Courts have an echo, we can infer?....
San Narciso lay further south, near L.A. Like many
named places in California it was less an identifiable
city than a grouping of concepts - census tracts, special
purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all
overlaid with access roads to its own freeway. But it
had been Pierce's domicile, and headquarters: the
place he'd begun his land speculating in ten years
ago, and so put down the plinth course of capital
on which everything afterward had been built,
however rickety or grotesque, toward the sky;
and that, she supposed, would set the spot apart,
give it an aura. But if there was any vital difference
between it and the rest of Southern California, it
was invisible on first glance.
CoL49, 13/14
In psychology and psychiatry, excessive narcissism
is recognized as a severe personality dysfunction or
personality disorder, most characteristically Narcissistic
personality disorder, also referred to as NPD.
Sigmund Freud believed that some narcissism is an
essential part of all of us from birth and was the first
to use the term in the reference to psychology.
Andrew Morrison claims that, in adults, a reasonable
amount of healthy narcissism allows the individual's
perception of his needs to be balanced in relation to
others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism
"That's me, that's me," cried Metzger, staring, "good God."
"Which one?" asked Oedipa. "That movie was called," Metzger
snapped his fingers, "Cashiered."
"About you and your mother." "About this kid and his father,
who's drummed out of the British Army for cowardice, only
he's covering up for a friend, see, and to redeem himself he
and the kid follow the old regiment to Gallipoli, where the father
somehow builds a midget submarine, and every week they slip
through the Dardanelles into the Sea of Marmara and torpedo
the Turkish merchantmen, the father, son, and St Bernard. The
dog sits on periscope watch, and barks if he sees anything."
Oedipa was pouring wine. "You're kidding." "Listen, listen,
here's where I sing." And sure enough, the child, and dog,
and a merry old Greek fisherman who had appeared from
nowhere with a zither. . . .[CoL49, 19]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFz79SBnuk8
Still, when she got a look at the next motel, she hesitated
a second. A representation in painted sheet metal of a
nymph holding a white blossom towered thirty feet into
the air; the sign, lit up despite the sun, said "Echo Courts."
The face of the nymph was much like Oedipa's, which
didn't startle her so much as a concealed blower system
that kept the nymph's gauze chiton in constant agitation,
revealing enormous vermilion-tipped breasts and long
pink thighs at each flap. She was smiling a lipsticked and
public smile, not quite a hooker's but nowhere near that
of any nymph pining away with love either. Oedipa pulled
into the lot, got out and stood for a moment in the hot sun
and the dead-still air, watching the artificial windstorm
overhead toss gauze in five-foot excursions. Remembering
her idea about a slow whirlwind, words she couldn't hear.
CoL49, 16
One day when Narcissus was out hunting stags, Echo
stealthily followed the handsome youth through the
woods, longing to address him but unable to speak
first. When Narcissus finally heard footsteps and
shouted "Who's there?", Echo answered "Who's
there?" And so it went, until finally Echo showed
herself and rushed to embrace the lovely youth.
He pulled away from the nymph and vainly told her
to get lost. Narcissus left Echo heartbroken and she
spent the rest of her life in lonely glens, pining away
for the love she never knew, until only her voice remained.
http://thanasis.com/echo.htm
Echo Personality Disorder
Written by: Ganymede
The term Echo Personality Disorder was coined by
British Psychosynthesis practitioner Patrick Hurst, as
a replacement term for 'Inverted Narcissism' and 'Covert
Narcissism' which later terms place unwarranted
emphasis on narcissistic qualities of the personality,
which in many of these individuals may not be a feature at all.
EPD is a highly differentiated form of Dependent
Personality Disorder, marked by behaviours of
compliance and a need to 'mirror' significant others
-parents, spouse, friends, employer. Individuals with
EPD may be attracted to relationships with individuals
showing marked narcissistic traits -people who need to
be mirrored or praised- though this in no way forms a
"standard" or "universal pattern" as is often claimed by
theorists. EPD individuals may enter into relationships
with a great variety of people, though at core there is a
tendency to choose situations in which unrequited love
will be the outcome.
http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/4649.php
Exhausted, hardly knowing what she was doing, she came
the last three steps and sat, took the man in her arms,
actually held him, gazing out of her smudged eyes down
the stairs, back into the morning. She felt wetness against
her breast and saw that he was crying again. He hardly
breathed but tears came as if being pumped. "I can't help,"
she whispered, rocking him, "I can't help." It was already too
many miles to Fresno.
CoL49, 102
(1958). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 39:188-190
Maternal Narcissism and the Oedipus Complex
Henry Harper Hart, M.D.
It is a remarkable fact that the most commonplace phenomenon
often escapes our attention in our zeal for elaborate theories.
Such a commonplace is the normal mother's narcissistic
identification with and cathexis of her child, as part of her own
body, that she can adore. Freud (4) considered the mother-son
attachment as the least ambivalent of object relations. Not only is
this adoration vital for the mother, but more so for the child.
Mothers who reject their children as deformed and inferior bring
into existence neurotic and criminal personalities, or if they have
genius they may become Byrons, Schopenhauers, or Balzacs.
Renaissance art with unerring insight saw the mother-child unity
as adorable, as the source of bliss and security.
http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=ijp.039.0188a
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