tMoP, Chap 11..The Walk

[Richard Ryan]

I'd conjecture that Coetzee (like his D.) believes in something like the "prerogatives of subjectivity."  Meaning that all men and women have the right to an interior experience unmolested by social and political restrictions or directives.  I don't think he (Coetzee) believes there are essential social truths - i.e., unquestionable interpretations or ascription of motives.  He does, however, seem to believe in a certain rights based universal morality; meaning that Coetzee seems to think that certain forms of behavior are always right or wrong, while not claiming that certain people are absolutely good or bad.

--- On Sun, 11/2/08, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: tMoP, Chap 11..The Walk
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>, "Richard Ryan" <richardryannyc at yahoo.com>
> Date: Sunday, November 2, 2008, 8:14 AM
> Yeah...fellow (to Doestoevky) artist Coetzee has fully felt
> and put down how a writer turns his life into his work. 
> 
> Q: Does Coetzee therefore see such work as The Demons to be
> so autobiographically-based that it does NOT illuminate
> reality as Dostoevsky so deeply believed? Dostoevsky
> believed he had captured THE essential truth
> of Nechaev and The People's Vengeance....
> 
> 
> --- On Sat, 11/1/08, Richard Ryan
> <richardryannyc at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > From: Richard Ryan <richardryannyc at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: tMoP, Chap 11..The Walk
> > To: "pynchon -l"
> <pynchon-l at waste.org>, markekohut at yahoo.com
> > Date: Saturday, November 1, 2008, 9:39 PM
> > That allusion (to the "The Eternal Husband")
> leaps
> > out off the page.  No doubt a Dostoevsky scholar would
> find
> > similar winks and allusions to the author's
> > "future" work scattered throughout the text.
>  
> > 
> > Ultimately I'll want to argue this novel is
> centrally
> > about art as a way of filtering some of the most
> painful
> > aspects of life - and a passing allusion to an
> unwritten
> > work such as the reference you flag, Mark, suggests
> that the
> > D. of TMoP is turning his life into art relentlessly,
> often
> > unconsciously.
> > 
> > 
> > --- On Sat, 11/1/08, Mark Kohut
> > <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > p 139..."eternal lodger"....surely an
> > allusion to
> > > Dostoevsky's novella,
> > > The Eternal Husband:
> > >
> >
> http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553214444...unwritten
> > > yet in Dosteovsky's real life, therefore 
> > > another foreshadowed work in TMoP, like The
> Demons.