TMOP: Chapter 8 - Ivanov

[Mark Kohut]

Bekah;

Great detailed virtual "annotation" to a, yes, very difficult chapter. 

Maybe lots of resonances to explore?...
but, I want to bring up just one for now....

D. is a writer and "signs" matter....the words a writer puts down are in the nature of signs...."meanings, etc......

I think D. here, Coetzee here, has a crucial chapter about how the events,
Pavel's death, etc. will get turned into meaning by D./Dostoevsky/Coetzee.

More later,

Mark


--- On Sat, 10/11/08, Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> From: Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: TMOP: Chapter 8 - Ivanov
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Saturday, October 11, 2008, 1:54 AM
> Last host-post from me:
> 
> 
> Chapter 8 - Ivanov
> 
> This is a really difficult chapter with the pronouns
> messing with an  
> already complex message.  Ambiguous or unclear or something
> (not to  
> disparage ambiguous - there are times when it adds a
> certain element  
> of the unknown or the idea that both (or more)  meanings
> could be true.
> 
> 
> [ Page 79  D. goes to sleep seeking Pavel but is disturbed
> by a voice  
> calling to him.  He goes out and finds it is a dog. ]
> 
> As I mentioned earlier,  dogs are important in Coetzee and
> I think  
> this one is very symbolic.
> 
> 
> [ Page 80  * The dog is not Pavel and it continues to howl.
>   D.  
> knows he  must not go back to bed because  his son will be
> like a  
> "thief in the night" so D.  must expect what he
> does not expect.   
> (But expecting it could nullify it.)
> 
> *   "like a thief in the night"  is a Biblical
> phrase,  2 Peter  
> 3:10,  1 Thesselonians 5:2  generally simply means someone
> (Christ)  
> will arrive without any announcement - unexpectedly -   D.
> was very  
> religious so his thinking in Biblical terms is very
> realistic.
> 
> 
> [  D. finds the dog tied and tangled with chain to a
> drainpipe.  It  
> whines.]
> 
> The dog is trapped like  Coetzee and Dostoevsky are in
> their writing  
> (tied to cultural barriers and getting twisted around their
> own  
> thinking - Coetzee writes about the barriers of South
> African  
> apartheid  a fair bit.)  Or the dog may be trapped like
> Pavel is in  
> death.  - Both?
> 
> ***************
> [ Page 81    The dog is terrified. D. tickles it.  "Is
> this what I  
> will be doing for the rest of my days, he wonders: peering
> into the  
> eyes of dogs and beggars?"   D. untangles the dog,
> pets him and  
> leaves him chained there.   He wonders about the owners -
> and thinks  
> that Pavel should have his own death,  that D. has no right
> to use it  
> as the occasion of his reformation. ]
> 
> * Love that line and thought
> 
> [  But he's kidding himself - "Pavel's death
> will always be his   
> death."  ]
> 
> Pavel's death is D.'s death.
> 
> [  " 'Who will save the baby?' he seems to
> hear within him, plaintive  
> words that come from he does not know where, in a
> peasant's singsong  
> voice." ]
> 
> And "peasant voices,"  for Dostoevsky, are often
> authentic voices,   
> especially when they are used in religion or religious
> themes - life  
> and death. ]
> 
> 
> [  D. carries Pavel like a dying baby, blue with cold. ]
> 
> * So is it,  "Who will save Pavel?"  Or who will
> save Sophia, his  
> infant daughter who probably died only a few months prior
> to this -  
> if Dostoevsky's chronology is followed.
> 
> [ " ' Raise up that last thing and cherish
> it.'  D. thinks this but  
> doesn't know if the words come from Pavel or not.   ]
> 
>   *   "The least thing" could be Biblical again: 
>  Matthew 25: 40 -  
> "And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to
> you, as you did it  
> to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to
> me.’     
> Sounds about right for Dostoevsky in his religious mind.
> 
> So who went out to answer the dog's call?   Pavel in
> D's body?  Have  
> we strayed into the occult here?
> 
> ****************
> [ Page 82   If Pavel did utter those words,  should he go
> back and  
> release the dog?   Or is it the beggar who is least and
> needs to be  
> released?  He feels totally hopeless but he knows he will
> never again  
> go out in the night to answer a dog's call.   "I
> am I," he thinks  
> despairingly.
> 
> [ D.  tries to argue that the dog is not his son but he
> loses -  
> "Pavel will not be saved till he has freed the dog and
> brought it  
> into his bed, brought the least thing, the beggarmen and
> the  
> beggarwomen too, and much else he does not yet know
> of..."
> 
> * This seems like some kind of religious contract which D.
> is trying  
> to bargain with God.    Bargaining is part of the grief
> process.  So  
> is guilt - I think  D. feels very, very guilty for the way 
> he  
> neglected Pavel and was harsh on him.
> 
> [  D. says he seeks the truth but realizes that the truth
> has been  
> pouring down on him and he is drowning in it yet he wants
> more -  
> reverse and reverse the reversal - a Jesuitical trick?]
> *  This one is more like the Epilogue of The Brothers
> Karamazov when  
> Alyosha has to admit that his thinking about escape and
> forgiveness  
> is like the lie becoming the truth - Jesuitical conundrums
> and  
> equivocation - tricks.
> 
> * D. has twisted himself around his tether just like the
> dog.
> 
> 
> 
> [ D. is standing in the street - his hands smell like dog,
> his tears  
> like salt. "Salt, for those who need salt."   
> And D. tries to  
> determine whether a thing is a thing or the thing is a sign
> and knows  
> that kind of thinking will defeat him.   "And beware,
> beware, he  
> reminds himself: the dog on the chain, the second dog, is
> nothing in  
> itself, is not an illumination, merely an animal
> likeness!"
> 
> *   This "salt of the earth" stuff is from the
> Bible again - Matthew  
> (again) 5:13 - Sermon on the Mount - and  probably an
> allusion to  
> peasants.  Dostoevsky loved the Russian peasant
> religiosity.
> 
> Very strange find:   http://marinablack.visualserver.com/ 
> Portfolio_main.cfm?nk=5421&nS=0&i=
> 
> 
> > They asked, "Why have you taken them? Was there a
> reason since  
> > you've never liked to collect them; you've
> always liked to look at  
> > them and sometimes leaf'd them through your
> fingers?" then I, "I  
> > should not have done it; I did not want to, no!"
> and I again, "Is  
> > someone knocking at the door? Listen? - A dog is
> howling; I smell  
> > the dog on my hands and the salt for those who need
> salt!" and then  
> > they, "The dog is not a sign, it is just a dog
> among many dogs  
> > howling in the night. So, what about them? Why have
> you taken them  
> > now?"
> 
> 
> [ Meanwhile,  is someone watching him from the doorway?  ]
> 
> ***************
> 
> Page 84
> 
> [ His imagination is full of bearded men with glittering
> eyes who  
> hide din the dark passages.  but he senses another
> presence.  Sees a  
> man crouched.  ]
> 
> Suspicion again - it's always there in this book -
> something  
> lurking,  spying - from Maximov to D. himself, the ultimate
>  
> cannibalistic voyeur,  to Nechaev.
> 
> [   " Expect the one you do not expect.  Very well;
> but must every  
> beggar then be treated as a prodigal son, embraced,
> welcomed into the  
> home, feasted?  Yes, that is what Pascal would say: bet on
> everyone,  
> every beggar, every mangy dog; only thus will you be sure
> that the  
> One, the true son, the thief in the night, will not sip
> through the  
> net."   ]
> 
> *  Prodigal son parable from the Bible - Luke 15: 11-32. -
> 
> The Gospel of Luke is also used for the whole idea of
> demons in Demons -
> 
> "The facts have shown us that the illness that seized
> civilized  
> Russians was much stronger than we ourselves imagined, and
> that the  
> matter did not end with Belinsky, Kraevsky, etc. But what
> occurred  
> here is what is witnessed to by the evangelist Luke.
> Exactly the same  
> thing happened with us: the demons came out of the Russian
> man and  
> entered into a herd of swine, i.e. into the Nechaevs
> [Russian  
> terrorists] . . ."
> 
> That's from a letter from Dostoevsky to Maykov about
> his ideas for  
> "Demons."
> 
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jim_forest/pevear.htm
> 
> *  Pascal -  Pascal's Wager -  "If you believe in
> God and turn out to  
> be incorrect, you have lost nothing -- but if you don't
> believe in  
> God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to hell.
> Therefore it  
> is foolish to be an atheist."
> 
> **********
> 
>   [ Page 85 -  Is betting on all the numbers still
> gambling?  And a  
> paragraph about the wife who  pawns her wedding ring for
> money for  
> the gambler who loses it so the wife goes out to pawn the
> wedding  
> dress.  ]
> 
> [ This is straight from Dostoevsky's life during the
> years in Europe  
> when Dostoevsky was down to pawning his wife's jewelry,
> including the  
> wedding ring,  to get himself out of gambling troubles and
> he went  
> straight to the card table with hit.)
> 
> http://www.dartmouth.edu/~karamazo/bio08.html
> 
> http://www.nplusonemag.com/gambling-supplement
> 
> [ D. compares "giving it all" to Anna, the
> landlady, and her love  
> making.  Is that an indicator of how she will give herself
> to the god  
> of chance? ]
> 
> But perhaps there's also a Biblical connection  to the
> parable of the  
> widow's mite?  Mark 12:38-44  ]
> 
> * And D. remembers and thinks,  "She, he thinks: she
> is the one, it  
> is she whom I want.  Therefore..."
> 
> **********
> 
> Page 86
> 
> [ And thinking this about Anna -  D. goes back downstairs
> and offers  
> his bed to the beggar.]
> 
> D. is figuring he has to give his all to redeem Pavel? 
> Like he's  
> pawned him?  Or he's what???  I don't see the
> logical connection but  
> perhaps its just about action?  Just give it - cover the
> bases - play  
> a Pascal.   Will Anna appreciate D's giving his bed to
> a bum?  -
> 
> [ the beggar says:  " ' This is my post, I must
> stay at my post.' "  
> But they get upstairs and the beggar introduces himself as
> Ivan Pyotr  
> Alexandrovich.
> 
> This is apparently the fictionalization of I.I. Ivanov the
> historical  
> victim of Necheav and People's Vengeance.   Dostoevsky
> used Ivanov in  
> Demons under the name Ivan Shatov.   This scene of Ivanov
> changing  
> his mind about accepting D.'s offer of his room may
> symbolize  
> Ivanov's change of heart about the "People's
> Revenge" group.    (not  
> to go further due to spoilers)
> 
> See - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Nechayev
> 
> ***********
> [ Page 87  Ivan advises D. to cry for his lost son. 
> "We must learn  
> to cry from the fair sex, Fyodor Mikhailovich."  Ivan
> cries.  " 'I  
> believe I will grieve for my lost babies for the rest of my
> days,'   
> he says." ]
> 
>   D. earlier thought of Pavel as a cold dying baby in his
> arms.
> 
> ************
> [  Page 88  D wonders if people tell him their stories
> because he is  
> a writer.  Ivanov talks to him about charity and grief and
> God.  D.  
> thinks Ivan a charlatan and they sleep.
> 
> * Ivan's name changes on this page - Ivan Pyotr
> Alexandrovich becomes  
> Ivanov as in I.I.  I don't know enough about Russian
> naming to know why.
> 
> [  D. wakes him up and says,  "Time to leave, your
> shift is over."    
> Ivanov doesn't notice the irony. }
> 
> * Another ambiguity, imo, does D. suspect anything - what?
> 
> ************
> 
> [  Page 89   Ivanov cadges breakfast and comments,   
> "We get what we  
> deserve, in a higher sense.  Nevertheless I sometimes
> wonder, do we  
> not also deserve, each of us, a refuge, a haven, where
> justice will  
> for a while relent and pity be taken on us? -  spirit of
> Scripture:   
> That we deserve what we do not deserve?
> 
> * Ivanov wants to stay,  rambles - tries to get D. into a  
> philosophical discussion.  D. has to almost kick him out.
> 
> *********
> 
> [  Page 90    A fat young girl dressed like a nun novice
> comes to  
> D.'s door.   She says she's a friend of Pavel's
> and wants to see what  
> he left behind.   She has called before but the landlady
> wouldn't  
> admit her. She says her name is Katri - a Finnish name.  
> "She looks  
> like a Finn, too."  ]
> 
> * Finland was an technically an autonomous Grand Duchy of
> Russia from  
> 1819.  They experienced a severe famine between 1866- 1868
> - I'm told  
> that my ancestors had to cook and eat the bark from the
> trees.  -  
> There was probably quite a lot of immigration during that
> time.   
> Petersburg is quite close.  There were no political
> ramifications to  
> the famine - not political blame or uprisings. 
> Historically,  this  
> girl would have come to Petersburg and been introduced to
> the cause  
> there.
> 
> **********
> [Page 91   " 'You realize that the police killed
> your stepson,' "    
> D. is stunned.  She says the police killed him and called
> it  
> suicide.   Katri is belligerent and restless.   She's
> apparently   
> looking for the list of names which Maximov has.  "
> ' Are you one of  
> Nechaev's people? ' "   She glares,
> "triumphant."  Would I tell you?   
> Do you know the police are watching this house?]
> 
> The question at that point is who is Ivan working for?  How
> did Pavel  
> really die?  We have more dark, brooding suspense.
> 
> *********
> 
> [  Page 92 - Katri, in D.'s mind,  is in the grip of a
> devil.  "The  
> devil inside her twitching, skipping, unable to keep
> still."  ]
> 
> *This is certainly the theme and spirit of Demons.
> 
> [ D.  tells himself he will give Ivan shelter if he shows
> up again.   
> "...that is enough for the bargain to hold. "
> * He apparently thinks he has made a bargain with God - but
> it's the  
> same one-sided bargain he told Matryona  Pavel made -
> "if you (God)  
> love me you'll save me."
> 
> *********
> 
> [ Page 93 - But D. knows he can do more than be willing  -
> he can  
> actually go forth and save Ivanov from his cold watchpost. 
>  So he  
> searches for him in order to offer him shelter again and
> finally  
> thinking, "I have done what I can."    "But
> he knows in his heart he  
> has not.  There is more he could do, much more."  ]
> 
> *  What more could he do?   He's wrestling with the
> angel here for  
> sure - with an internal spiritual force - a fight which has
> its  
> origins in some really basic human condition.
> 
> Bekah