TMoP, Chapter 20, The End

[Mark Kohut]

> 
> I do not think D's thoughts morphing into Stavrogin too
> glib, but right on. (If that seems 'too easy' in the
> context of the book, then that is a lit crit judegment about
> the book, imho)
> 
> I have sorta expressed myself about this in earlier
> postings. I think that Coetzee's achievement/originality
> in TMoP is to offer a vision of how a vision of evil can
> enter a writers' work. D. herein is almost a naive,--an
> innocent, once-born writer BEFORE this period in his life,
> Coetzee might be implying THEN he no longer is. THEN, his
> knowledge of evil is visceral AND IS (PART OF ) HIM. 
> 
> Stavrogin's destruction via statutory rape and then
> emotional/literal abandonment/distance when the girl was
> despairing enough to (finally) commit suicide was
> Dostoevsky's touchstone vision of pure evil....(see
> Grand Inquisitor in "Boris K"., see diaries for
> "Life of a Great Sinner"). This horrible chapter
> was judged too offensive to appear in the original edition
> of The Demons by the printer/publisher. They expressed the
> societal
> feelings, the feelings embodied in ways by Maximov in TMoP.
> 
> 
> Coetzee presents us with a D. different from Dostoevsky.
> This difference is mainly in having to deal with the cosmic
> evil of his stepson's death and why, leading him to an
> adulterous 'occasion of sin" to which he succumbs.
> A moral evil. 
> 
> Throughout D.'s emotional perturbances in TMoP, we have
> seen him "allowing' as it were, evil into his
> soul/mind. THIS is how he is able
> to grasp Nechaev's and especially Stavrogin's
> evil--he contains it---and objectify it in the creation of
> "The Demons". (I still cannot find that quote
> about having to know evil to write it..Shakespeare, I think,
> but here is a longer semi-relevant quote found in a
> paper/essay online:“And I just realized [that] something
> that I always wanted to deny is how evil evil can
> be.”---firefighter at WTC after 9/11
> 
> "The firefighter’s realization underscores the
> enormous phenomenological distance between encountering evil
> at a safe cognitive and emotional remove, and confronting
> evil when it invades the individualized space of personal
> experience and indelibly marks the human psyche. This
> phenomenological distance tends to bifurcate discursive
> approaches to the problem of evil. On the one hand,
> narrative approaches often occupy the personalized space of
> characters grappling with evil (in, say, a Dostoevsky novel
> or, more recently, a play like Margaret Edson’s Wit). Such
> narratives eliminate that phenomenological distance and give
> representation to concrete, particularized experiences of
> suffering; evil rushes in upon the reader as the narrative
> unfolds. Philosophical approaches, on the other hand, often
> operate from a de-individualized vantage point that, if
> successful, will render universally binding conclusions. In
> order to do so, such approaches necessarily
>  maintain that phenomenological distance, combating the
> problem of evil from an abstract, de-particularized
> perspective; concrete instances of evil are held at bay
> while the theodicy-maker squares off against the universal
> problem of evil"
> )
> 
> I think TMoP is Coetzee's (largely) brilliant
> presentation of the "elimination of that
> phonomenological distance" while giving embodiment
> to "concrete, particularized experiences of
> suffering". Evil does rush in upon the reader as the
> narative of TMoP ends....
> 
> C's anger at the death of his own son. C's steady
> refusal to allow any belief in terrorism (as ever justified)
> into his beliefs. C. showing us how such can enter--become
> part of-- a great writer
> 
>  Yet, yet, resonantly, he presents Dostoevsky's similar
> refusal as partly keeping such unjustified beliefs
> alive..??...presenting the 'excitement' the
> romanticism of such beliefs....and the seemingly hopeless
> situations in which the beliefs operate.....
> 
> One of C's resonances might be: when D.--or I--write
> about evil, we are partaking of it and keeping it, at least
> partly, alive. ..?? Would Nechaev's group have been so
> influential in history--Lenin, others---if Dostoevsky had
> NOT written The Demons???
> 
> Is more Coetzeean resonance. 
> 
> I'm easy. I loved it (finding only a few squeaking
> strainings). Thanks to all who wanted to read it in the
> group.
> 
> 
> --- On Wed, 11/26/08, Lawrence Bryan
> <lebryan at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> 
> > From: Lawrence Bryan <lebryan at speakeasy.net>
> > Subject: TMoP, Chapter 20, The End
> > To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> > Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 5:55 PM
> > Stavrogin, the last chapter, is a difficult one for
> me. The
> > title is the name of the main character in a novel,
> > "Devils", the fictional D has not yet
> written, but
> > which Dostoyevsky did write shortly after the time
> period in
> > TMoP. At first glance one sees D's thoughts on
> Nechaev
> > morphing into the fictional Stavrogin, but this seems
> all
> > too glib.
> > 
> > The author Coetzee is the creator of the fictional D
> > writing as though he is the real Dostoyevsky writing
> about
> > the real Nechaev in the fictional character Stavrogin
> who
> > doesn't appear at all in Coetzee except as a
> chapter
> > title.
> > 
> > "Nothing he says is true, nothing is false,
> nothing is
> > to be trusted, nothing to be dismissed." . . .
> > "Perversion: everything and everyone to be turned
> to
> > another use, to be gripped to him and fall with
> him."
> > (p. 235)
> > 
> > As Petersburg burns, D sits at his writing desk trying
> to
> > start to write. He wrestles with ideas, what to write,
> a
> > stream of consciousness, follows: God, blasphemy,
> Pavel,
> > fathers and sons at war with each other, God as the
> father
> > to D who is father to Pavel and also father to what D
> > writes, until finally, he starts to write.
> > 
> > I can continue to summarize Coetzee's last
> chapter, but
> > for me it is a mystery which a summary will not
> unravel.
> > 
> > Perhaps someone else here can shed more light on this
> > ending.
> > 
> > In doing a bit of research I came across the following
> and
> > copied the last paragraph.
> > 
> > Title: Incriminating documents: Nechaev and Dostoevsky
> in
> > J.M. Coetzee's 'The Master of Petersburg.'
> > (Sergei Nechaev, Fyodor Dostoevsky)
> > Author: Margaret Scanlan
> > Publication: Philological Quarterly (Refereed)
> > Date: September 22, 1997
> > Publisher: University of Iowa
> > Volume: v76    Issue: n4    Page: p463(15)
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > The violence Coetzee's Dostoevsky recognizes in
> > himself, and in terms of which he understands the
> process of
> > artistic creation as plagiarism, appropriation, and
> > perversion, is always visible in this novel, not least
> in
> > the contrast between this fictional character and what
> we
> > know about his historical counterpart. In real life,
> Pavel
> > Isaev did not die young, and his stepfather's
> generosity
> > to him through his own years of poverty is one of his
> most
> > redeeming qualities. There is, apparently, little
> reason to
> > believe the old gossip about Dostoevsky and child
> > prostitutes, and it is patently unfair to conflate an
> author
> > with his own characters as Coetzee does when, omitting
> > references to Dostoevsky's career as the editor of
> an
> > influential journal or to his numerous family, he
> makes him
> > out to be as febrile and isolated as Raskolnikov. But
> this
> > unfairness, this incompatibility between the text of
> history
> > and the text of fiction, is of course Coetzee's
> point.
> > He is not out to "correct" the historical
> record,
> > replacing it with a more accurate version; in the best
> > postmodern way, he shows us the gaps and distortions
> in the
> > received version without trying to conceal the
> problems of
> > his own. But Coetzee shares little of the often
> alleged
> > playfulness of the deconstructive view. His Dostoevsky
> > slinks off in the night, meditating on the silence of
> God,
> > which persists in spite of the betrayals by which he
> had
> > tried to end it. He is more than a little stagy and
> > melodramatic, this guilt-ridden genius, but he is also
> > powerful image of the failure of a romantic view of
> > literature, a great writer who can finally neither
> transcend
> > history nor shape it to his liking.
> > 
> > Lawrence, glad to go on to something else.