TMOP: Chapter 7

[Mark Kohut]

Just a few obs after this so-thorough posting.

In another novel, Coetzee has a woman who 'gives herself' out of....kindness? niceness?...moved by "pleading"? Seems thematic. 

D.'s remark on fathers/sons...so part of this book, Russia then [Turgenev's
book as Rich ahs remarked] and the "psychological/Freudian' perspective on History? 

Old growing small...in Spirit? "Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for they shall inherit the Kingdom of God".  another perspective on 'too much wealth"..having too much Spirit?? [Cf. Demons as spiritual beings?]

"joy breaking like a dawn" reminded me of Nietzsche and his Daybreak thematic similarity....but if so, it is Coetzee, not D., slyly alluding, of course.

I think Coetzee does want the possession theme of epilepsy to resonate (as you all probably do)...He, Coetzee, seems to be working with mutual back-and-forth resonances the notion of 'being possessed'...this is Dostevsky's way of understanding Nechaev (and group), and Coetzee's way of understanding D. ...?

Often jealousy starts when one's feelings (of budding love) starts. Is this
also happening (along with his writerly snooping for deeper truths)?


--- On Thu, 10/9/08, Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> From: Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: TMOP:  Chapter 7
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Thursday, October 9, 2008, 10:40 PM
> Matryona
> 
> [Page 66 -   D. doesn't return from the island to the
> house with Anna  
> and Matryona.  He wanders, declines a card game at the inn.
> 
> (he's switched obsessions perhaps?)
> 
> [ And he feels lonely.  Aware that he  may be wearing out
> his welcome  
> with Anna.  Aware that he is growing physically older -
> aware of  
> haemorrhoids - dry skin, dental plates.
> 
> *Dostoevsky really had dentures, hemorrhoids but perhaps
> not so early.]
> 
> **********
> 
> [ Page 67 -  He wonders what Matryona thinks about this
> "spectacle of  
> decay."    He flinches at the idea of being an object
> of pity,   
> remembering Anna's comment "You were
> pleading." (Line 7) (from pg 59)  
> and D. turns to Pavel, kneeling against the bed.  "...
> tries to find  
> his way to Yelagin Island and to Pavel in his cold
> grave."  ]
> 
> * There's an abundance of self-pity here  but he's 
> also really in  
> deep turmoil.  As has been said,  this is total fiction -
> in  
> Dostoevsky's life, Pavel outlived his step-father and
> Yelagin Island  
> has never been a cemetery.
> 
> http://www.encspb.ru/en/article.php?kod=2804008886
> 
> Mentions "a Finnish-Swedish cemetery at Elagin
> (Aptekarsky) Island  
> (abolished in 1756)."   - That's only missing the
> "Y" and I think  
> they're the same place. Many, many other cemeteries
> listed at the  
> above site.  "In 1738, the Synod affirmed five places
> where burials  
> were to take place, of which only the cemetery on
> Vasilievsky Island  
> has survived. "  Mostly cemetery plots were free and
> located near the  
> churches.
> http://www.encspb.ru/en/article.php?kod=2804010103 (but I  
> can't find the source for the info.)  Meanwhile,
> Elagin/Yelagin  
> Island has no church actually on it.   ???
> 
> View on Yelegin Island
> http://www.oilpaintinghk.com/art/oil_paintings_24317.html
> http://www.nlr.ru/petersburg/spbpcards/photos/lo000000377_1_m.jpg
> 
> [line  14  "The father faded copy of the son.  How can
> he expect a  
> woman who beheld the son in the pride of his days to look
> with favour  
> on the father?"]
> 
> * That is such an incredible line.   To me it describes
> this whole  
> part of the plot.  D. is trying to become son but he is
> only a weak  
> version and a copy at that.  He's comparing his
> manliness and life- 
> force with that of Pavel's.
> 
> [line 17 -  Remembering the quote of a fellow-prisoner in
> Siberia - "  
> ' Why are we given old age, brothers? So that we can
> grow small  
> again, small enough to crawl through the eye of a
> needle.' Peasant  
> wisdom." ]
> 
> * It was in Siberia that Dostoevsky experienced his
> life-changing  
> conversion to Russian Orthodox Christianity - he was
> disgusted by the  
> class hatred, the  filth and lack of moral fiber of the
> peasants he  
> came in contact with there but was mightily impressed by
> their  
> spirituality.
> http://www.dartmouth.edu/~karamazo/bio04.html
> 
> * The eye of the needle is from Matthew 19: 23 - 26 and
> Mark 10:25
> http://biblecc.com/matthew/19-24.htm
> http://bible.cc/mark/10-25.htm
> 
> The reference probably means that old men grow very humble.
>  In the  
> Biblical references it refers to wealth and possibly to 
> Needle's  
> Eye,  one of many gates into Jerusalem, which is so small 
> only an  
> unencumbered camel on its knees can pass through - any
> excess wealth  
> (treasure boxes) can't fit.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle
> 
> 
> [line 23  He wakes the next day full of life.  He feels
> resurrected  
> and wants to shout  "Christ is risen!"  And he
> wants to dance with  
> Anna and Matryona and painted eggs. ]
> 
> * This is October,  not spring,  but October is not really
> cold in  
> St. Petersburg (mid 40s  F. for a high) and there isn't
> much rain  
> then.   hat has brought this sudden lift of spirits about? 
> (Grief is  
> a mysterious process, there are moments or days of joy
> interspersed  
> with the heavy gloom.)
> 
> * One of Dostoevsky's Siberian spiritual experiences
> occurred at Easter.
>  From 
> http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/diagnosing- 
> dostoyevskys-epilepsy/   :
> > On Easter night, during his exile in Siberia,
> Dostoyevsky was  
> > visited by an old friend, to whom he described the
> almost prophetic  
> > vision he had experienced during the aura preceding
> one of his  
> > attacks:
> >
> > The air was filled with a big noise and I tried to
> move. I felt the  
> > heaven was going down upon the earth, and that it had
> engulfed me.  
> > I have really touched God. He came into me myself;
> yes, God exists,  
> > I cried, You all, healthy people, have no idea what
> joy that joy is  
> > which we epileptics experience the second before a
> seizure.  
> > Mahomet, in his Koran, said he had seen Paradise and
> had gone into  
> > it. All these stupid clever men are quite sure that he
> was a liar  
> > and a charlatan. But no, he did not lie, he really had
> been in  
> > Paradise during an attack of epilepsy; he was a victim
> of this  
> > disease as I am. I do not know whether this joy lasts
> for seconds  
> > or hours or months, but believe me, I would not
> exchange it for all  
> > the delights of this world.
> >
> 
> *****************
> 
> [page 68  But this "...joy breaking like a dawn" 
> lasts only an  
> instant.  An "anti-sun" appears and the word
> "omen" crosses his mind  
> to reveal the idea that there will be 'an eclipse;  joy
> shines out  
> only to reveal what the annihilation of joy will be like.
> ' " ]
> 
> * This uplift of spirits often precedes a seizure - see my
> next post -
> 
> [ D fears this and the accompanying shame so he leaves the
> house to  
> deal with it privately.  In the dark staircase there is a
> loud cry  
> but although the neighbors wake up,  D. doesn't hear
> it.  ]
> 
>   "Dostoevsky was affected by physical and mental
> disturbances  
> following a seizure (This is also called the
> 'post-ictal 'state) It  
> took him up to one week to recover fully.  His chief
> complaint was  
> that his 'head did not clear up' for several days
> and symptoms  
> included, "heaviness and even pain in the head,
> disorders of the  
> nerves, nervous laugh and mystical depression"
> 
> http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml
> 
> * Did D. yell?  I suppose so.
> 
> ***********
> [ Page 69 He wakes from the seizure in darkness.]
> 
> * This whole page is a great description of a seizure - or
> so it  
> seems to me.  Includes the idea of falling into yourself.
> 
> Epilepsy:
> > The word epilepsy is derived from the Greek epilepsia,
> which in  
> > turn can be broken into epi- (upon) and lepsis (to
> take hold of, or  
> > seizure)[35] In the past, epilepsy was associated with
> religious  
> > experiences and even demonic possession. In ancient
> times, epilepsy  
> > was known as the "Sacred Disease" because
> people thought that  
> > epileptic seizures were a form of attack by demons, or
> that the  
> > visions experienced by persons with epilepsy were sent
> by the gods.  
> > Among animist Hmong families, for example, epilepsy
> was understood  
> > as an attack by an evil spirit, but the affected
> person could  
> > become revered as a shaman through these otherworldly
> experiences.[36]
> >
> > However, in most cultures, persons with epilepsy have
> been  
> > stigmatized, shunned, or even imprisoned; in the
> Salpêtrière, the  
> > birthplace of modern neurology, Jean-Martin Charcot
> found people  
> > with epilepsy side-by-side with the mentally retarded,
> those with  
> > chronic syphilis, and the criminally insane. In
> Tanzania to this  
> > day, as with other parts of Africa, epilepsy is
> associated with  
> > possession by evil spirits, witchcraft, or poisoning
> and is  
> > believed by many to be contagious.[37] In ancient
> Rome, epilepsy  
> > was known as the Morbus Comitialis ('disease of
> the assembly hall')  
> > and was seen as a curse from the gods.
> >
> > Stigma continues to this day, in both the public and
> private  
> > spheres, but polls suggest it is generally decreasing
> with time, at  
> > least in the developed world; Hippocrates remarked
> that epilepsy  
> > would cease to be considered divine the day it was
> understood.[38]
> >
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy
> 
> *  Although the idea that these fits were evidence of
> "possession by  
> demons"  was pretty well dropped in the 17th century, 
> epilepsy was  
> not studied medically until the late 19th century.  This
> would have  
> been unknown by Dostoevsky and his crowd and they probably
> still  
> called it the "falling sickness" as in Europe
> during the Middle Ages  
> - (and other cultures even today - See "The Spirit
> Catches You and  
> You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman - her best work, imho
> ).
> http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/history
> http://library.thinkquest.org/J001619/history.html    ]
> 
> 
> * In  Demons, Kirilov  has a kind of frontal lobe epilepsy
> and in The  
> Brothers Karamazov Sverdyakov is so afflicted.   Prince
> Myshkin in  
> the Idiot has it including one seizure induced by looking
> at  
> Holbein's painting "The Dead Christ."
> http://www.abcgallery.com/H/holbein/holbein8.html
> 
> **********
> 
> [ page 70 - D. walks through the snow and hides until he is
> sure Anna  
> and her daughter have gone out.  Then he goes back to the
> house,  
> washes up pretty thoroughly and then snoops around her
> house.  He  
> finds a picture of Anna's deceased husband and
> "deliberately smudges  
> the glass, leaving his thumbprint over the face of the dead
> man."
> 
> * snooping and  jealousy?  Is he looking for evidence of
> Pavel or  
> something else?  Whatever he can find, perhaps.
> 
> *****************
> 
>   [ page 71 He enjoys sneaking and spying,  "a
> weakness that he has  
> associated till now with a refusal to accept limits to what
> he is  
> permitted to know, with the reading of forbidden books, and
> thus with  
> his vocation.  Today ... he is in thrall to a spirit of
> petty  
> evil ... gives him a voluptuous quiver of pleasure." 
> ]
> 
> * Writing is associated with snooping?   (Yes, I've
> always thought so.)
> 
> *  D. is presented as going from ecstasy to terror to a
> voluptuous  
> quiver of pleasure" within the space of a single
> morning.  Dostoevsky  
> was emotionally unstable,  especially in his later years. 
> Can't have  
> been an easy life what with the the childhood violence,
> gambling,   
> religion,  epilepsy and other things .  ]
> 
> [  D.  dons Pavel's white suit and checking the mirror
> "sees only a  
> seedy imposture and, beyond that, something surreptitious
> and  
> obscene, something that belongs behind the locked doors and
> curtained  
> windows of rooms where men in wigs and skirts bare their
> rumps to be  
> flogged."
> 
> [Yup, he probably looks pretty bad and imo, he's
> setting himself up  
> for more perversity there. ]
> 
> [  He lies down and feels like he's falling into
> blackness again.   
> When he wakes he has "lost all sense of who he
> is."  He thinks it's a  
> dream but then the reality hits him.]
> 
> * The reality is that Pavel is dead and D. is wearing the
> deceased  
> son's clothes and lying on the deceased boy's bed -
> possibly in order  
> to become Pavel.
> 
> ********
> 
> [ Page 72    Matryona comes in and thinks D is ill.   He
> tells her  
> the story of Pavel's white suit. ]
> 
> *  This story is generally similar to the one which Peter  
> Verkhovensky cooks up to assuage Stavrogin's mother in
> Demons.  One  
> difference is that Stavrogin actually marries  the crippled
> and  
> feeble-minded Marya Timofeyevna. - Book 1,  Chapter 5, 
> Parts V- VII   
> Marya's brother was a drunkard who beat her.
> 
> *  D. likens Maria (Marya in Demons)  to a dog or a horse -
> she  
> doesn't know any better than to take the abuse whatever
> abuse is  
> handed her.
> 
> [  Coetzee does have a thing for animals, especially dogs -
> see  
> Disgrace especially. ]
> 
> ********
> 
> [  Page 73  *  Matryona is horrified  and D. forces totally
> brutal  
> Russian ideas on the good, naive, young Matryovna.
> 
> * This is pretty extreme emotional violence done to a young
> girl.   
> Coetzee portrays D. as quite a brute.
> 
> D. finishes the story of Marya Lebyatkin (Lebyadkin in
> Demons),  a  
> variation of the as yet unwritten story of Stavrogin's
> courtship and  
> marriage.   (Of course,  Pavel didn't marry Maria as
> Stavrogin  
> married Marya.  I'm not sure if this makes Pavel a bit
> of a cad or not.
> 
> [ Page 74  * - Matryona wiggles and puts her thumb in her
> mouth!
> 
> The effects of such brutality - Matryona is regressing.
> 
> Does D present the story of Pavel and the white suit to
> make Pavel  
> look very "chivalrous;"  I'm not sure I buy
> that - it's kind of  
> caddish for Pavel to lead Maria on like that even if D.
> totally  
> invented the story.   *  The "Demons" story of
> Stavrogin and Marya is  
> quite different - (go read it).
> 
> But why the white suit - Coetzee's D. didn't invent
> that and it  
> doesn't seem to go with Pavel's station in his
> Petersburg life.   
> (Btw, what was Pavel's situation?)   Were white suits
> popular in  
> Europe ca. 1860?   Mark Twain famously had one.  The War
> and Peace  
> movies always seem to have a guy in a white suit.   ???
> 
> Who knows why the fictional Pavel had the white suit?   I
> doubt it  
> was as D. told it - I know the whole thing is fiction but
> this little  
> story from D.'s mouth seems to go beyond D's usual
> unreliablity  and   
> Coetzee's D. is very unreliable - he's between
> reality and fantasy -  
> perhaps between life and death.
> 
> 
> 
> * Matryona asks why Pavel killed himself and reveals that
> her mother  
> (Anna) thinks Pavel killed himself.
> 
> 
> 
> **********
> 
> [ Page 75  D. suggests that one cannot succeed at suicide,
> only God  
> has power over life and death.
> 
>   This is another reference to "Demons" where
> Krillov (Krylov?) is  
> going to commit suicide in order have the kind of
> "free will" which  
> goes against God - the  power over life and death - he
> wants to  
> become God.
> 
> [ D. goes on to explain that Pavel was giving God an
> ultimatum of  
> sorts,  "If you love me you will save me" and
> betting that God  
> would.  But God didn't.  "Perhaps God does not
> like to be tempted."  
> or "Perhaps God does not hear very well."  ]
> 
> * And here's D. and Dostoevsky (and
> 
> [ D. motions to Matryona to sit on the bed and puts his arm
> around  
> her.  "He can feel her trembling. He strokes her hair,
> her temples." ]
> 
> **********
> 
> [ Page 76.   Finally Matryona balls her fists and sobs
> freely. ]
> 
> * again,  like a small child,
> 
> [ Matryona "Why did he have to die?"   D.   wants
> to say he didn't  
> die, that he's here,  "I am he."   But he
> cannot.]
> 
> *  the man is drifting seriously out of reality - he is
> starting to  
> believe he is Pavel but still knows this is not really
> true, it would  
> scare Matryona -  why doesn't he say it?   He's
> playing more than  
> one  dangerous game.
> 
> [   "If only the seed could have been taken out of the
> body, even a  
> single seed, and given a home."  And he thinks of the
> Hindu Shiva's  
> seed being drawn out of his dead body.]
> 
>   http://www.bhagavadgitausa.com.cnchost.com/KALI.h9.jpg
> 
> * If D. is Pavel,  then can he impregnate Matryona?  (is
> this what  
> his thoughts are driving at?)
> 
> 
> 
> [Now D. imagines Matryona "in her ecstasy."   and
> then,  "of a baby,  
> dead, buried in an iron coffin beneath the snow-piled
> earth..."  and  
> he stops the "violation," although "she
> might as well be sprawled out  
> naked."  ]
> 
> * He takes the ideas as far as he can take them - a baby
> dead and  
> buried - theirs?  And he suddenly abandons the idea of
> seducing  
> Matryona.
> 
> [ "She is prostituting the Virgin" as the men who
> visit child  
> prostitutes say.  They see something maidenly beneath the
> garish  
> paint and it outrages them, they need to go so far as to
> put that  
> child's life in danger." ]
> 
> Another incredibly compelling visual.
> 
> ******
> [page 77  But D.'s  "vision, the fit, the rictus
> of the imagination,  
> passes."]
> 
> * interesting variation of terms;  is this vision a seizure
> of  
> sorts?   Has there been an opening of the imagination?  Are
> there  
> other sorts of visions?
> 
> * and is D. cannibalizing the lives of his loved ones for
> stories?
> 
> [ Matryona asks about making a shrine in the room  but D.
> demurs - he  
> is only staying a short time but his mourning for Pavel
> will go on  
> forever. And he may also mourn Matyona forever, but it may
> be only a  
> bit too soon to tell.  ]
> 
> ************
> 
> [Page 78  Matryona asks to light a candle for Pavel and
> keep it  
> burning.  "So he won't be in the dark."   She
> does this and then  
> "returns to the bed and rests her head on his
> arm."  ... "He can feel  
> the soft young bones fold, one over another, as a
> bird's wing folds." ]
> 
> Yes, Mr. D.  she is so very vulnerable,  crushable -
> don't go there.
> 
> 
> 
> Bekah