TMoP: Chapter 5 pgs 43 - 49; on Baal

[Bekah]

I see I neglected to reference my source:   http://en.wikipedia.org/ 
wiki/Baal

"Ba'al (pronounced: [baʕal]; Hebrew: בעל) (ordinarily spelled Baal  
in English) is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning  
"master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of  
cities in the Levant, cognate to Assyrian Bēlu. A Baalist means a  
worshipper of Baal."

*  probably a number of possible context-dependent meanings to the term

Bekah



On Oct 5, 2008, at 12:13 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Baal (demon)
> From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>
> The Dictionnaire Infernal illustration of Baal.Baal (sometimes  
> spelled Bael, Baël (French), Baell)is a Judeo-Christian demon. His  
> name also refers to various gods and goddesses who are not demons.  
> This is a potential source of confusion. In this article, the name  
> Baal is used only to refer to the demon Baal, unless stated otherwise
>
>
>
> --- On Sun, 10/5/08, Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> From: Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
>> Subject: TMoP:  Chapter 5  pgs 43 - 49
>> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Date: Sunday, October 5, 2008, 11:28 AM
>> I sent this but didn't see it come through and it's
>> not on the site.
>>
>>
>>
>> ***********
>> [page 43 - 44    D.  "Nechaev is not a police matter.
>> Ultimately
>> Nechaev is not a matter for the authorities at all, at
>> least for the
>> secular authorities."
>> Maximov says that Nechaevism is an idea - you can't
>> stamp out ideas
>> by imprisoning their leader.   But D. says Nechaevism
>> is beyond
>> ideas, Nechaevism hates ideas,  It's a spirit,  a
>> demon,  Nechaev is
>> its host,  is possessed by it.]
>>
>> * I suppose this would make Nechaevism a spiritual problem
>> and this
>> is where Dostoevsky comes in to explore it with Crime and
>> Punishment
>> and Demons?
>>
>>
>> ***********
>> [page 44 - D.  tries to visualize Nechaev and says that the
>> name of
>> the spirit inhabiting Nechaev is "Baal."  ]
>>
>> * Title reference  - T "Master" oP -  in Hebrew
>> Baal refers to Lord
>> or  "Master."
>>
>> Maximov is irritated by D's constant reference to
>> ideas,  "Is it even
>> practical to talk about ideas going about in the land, as
>> if ideas
>> had arms and legs?  Will such talk assist us in our
>> labours? Will it
>> assist Russia?"
>>
>> ***********
>>
>> [page 45 - Maximov talks about the difference in children
>> of the day
>> -  think they're immortal"  "like fighing
>> demons,"   "I am a father
>> myself."   "It's in their blood... to wish us
>> ill, our generation." ]
>>
>> * And Coetzee,  as I noted above somewhere,  writes
>> frequently about
>> parent/child relationships and generational divide in his
>> older and
>> newer works. And Coetzee's own son hovers in the
>> picture,  on the
>> side,  the reader wonders...
>>
>>
>> ***********
>> [page 45 and then Maximov makes reference to D's own
>> father,  an
>> abusive drunkard. ]
>> http://www.dartmouth.edu/~karamazo/bio01.html
>> (excellent mini-biography - 10+ pages)
>>
>> Dostoevsky's father was a drunk and a womanizer,  had
>> emotional
>> problems,  and was killed, probably by angry peasants.
>> Dostoevsky
>> was 17 at the time.
>>
>> [Maximov goes on to suggest that the current difficulties
>> are not new
>> - "...just the old matter of fathers and sons after
>> all, such as we
>> have always had, only deadlier in this particular
>> generation..."
>> and goes on to mention the Decemberists and the "men
>> of '49."]
>>
>> ** Decemberists were members of a St. Petersburg revolt
>> which took
>> place in December of 1825 - Dostoevsky was a young child.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decembrist_revolt
>>
>> **  "...the men of '49"  is Maximov's
>> viscous little allusion to the
>> Petrashevsky Circle to  Dostoevsky belonged until his
>> "execution"
>> and exile in Siberia in 1849.  The group was a Western
>> oriented bunch
>> of intellectuals who were opposed to Tsarist rule and the
>> institution
>> of serfdom.   Petrashevsky was the leader.  Maximov is
>> asking if
>> Dostoevsky and friends were possessed by demons.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrashevsky_Circle
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Petrashevsky
>> (interesting guy)
>>
>>
>> ***********
>>
>> [ Page 46 - Dostoevsky furiously rebuts Maximov's
>> insinuations.
>> "They were certainly not men of blood. Petrashevsky -
>> ... from the
>> outset denounced the kind of Jesuitism that excuses the
>> means in the
>> name of the end."  ]
>>
>> **  "The ends justify the means" is exactly what
>> Nechaev is about.
>> According to the Nechaev -Bakunin Catechism, nothing was
>> unacceptable
>> as long as the revolutionary furthered his goal.
>> http://subversivevision.wordpress.com/2007/08/15/bakunin-and-nechaev-
>>
>> by-paul-avrich/
>> http://allrussias.com/tsarist_russia/revmov_9.asp
>> (good articles)
>>
>>   * Dostoevsky and Jesuits -  Dostoevsky was horrified,
>> later to the
>> point of obsession,  by the Jesuits who, in his mind,
>> would stoop to
>> whatever it took to convert souls.   (Google Books - pg 8)
>> http://
>> tinyurl.com/5v5qvv
>>
>> In  The Brothers Karamazov the idea that "(without
>> God) everything is
>> permitted" (in various translations) is a theme.  It
>> comes up
>> repeatedly there.
>>
>> [The question remains,  "...why do intelligent young
>> men fall under
>> the sway of evildoers?"]
>>
>> **************
>> [page 46:   And D. accuses Maximov of holding himself at a
>> distance,
>> erecting a barrier of ridicule..." to the reading
>> material. ]
>>
>> *  discussed in prior pages - Maximov cannot open himself
>> to the
>> text; he has an agenda and has to find the nihilists,
>> Nechaev.
>>
>>   **********
>> [ page 47: - Dostoevsky gets angry,  "... reading is
>> being the arm
>> and being the axe and being the skull, reading is giving
>> yourself up,
>> not holding yourself at a distance jeering."  ]
>>
>> *  Not sure about the mention of axe there - that's a
>> "People's"
>> revolutionary symbol - see above, page 41.  - Is D.
>> revealing his old
>> "revolutionary" impulses through the written
>> word?  -  Reading as an
>> interactive process,  a joint venture between author and
>> reader?  - I
>> don't think that's what he's saying in the
>> whole sentence.   And
>> that's not a Dostoevskian idea - it may be
>> Coetzee's.
>>
>> ***************
>> [ page 47:   Maximov accuses D of being in a fever.
>> Dostoevsky:
>> "The papers you are holding on to so jealously may as
>> well be written
>> in Aramaic for all the good they will do you." ]
>>
>> *  Aramaic?  A Biblical allusion - but why?  Is he calling
>> Maximov an
>> atheist?
>>
>> ****************
>>
>> [page 48 - Dostoevsky returns to the ante-room of the
>> police station
>> and is overwhelmed by the smell of paint. ]
>>
>> * a seizure?  or, as some speculate,  the onset of a
>> creative impulse
>> which will culminate in a book.)
>>
>> ****************
>> [Page 49 - D. goes for a walk,  trying to summon
>> Pavel's face,  all
>> that comes to him is Nechaev.   The image will not leave.
>> ]
>>
>> Bek
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