TMOP Chapter 9 - Nechaev

[Mark Kohut]

Wow!....I missed it....Yes, historians think Nechaev and Bakunin were lovers.....Did young Pavel, unformed yet in many ways, feel sexual urges for both sexes?...He had these women friends around him, but sex was not so often in those days. 

If so, why? That is, why did Coetzee give Pavel that situation? 

And, what is the meaning of D.'s blindness to it?.  Showing his Victorian era Christianity despite his psychological penetration of human beings? 

Is his overidentification with Pavel part of the reason? 





--- On Fri, 10/17/08, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> Subject: TMOP Chapter 9 - Nechaev
> To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Friday, October 17, 2008, 9:55 AM
> TMoP Chapter 9 – Some initial thoughts…
> 
> D. sees the "plump, almost spherical" Finn with a
> tall thin woman on
> the street.  He surreptitiously follows them, and after
> almost losing
> them is directed to the blind alley entrance of their
> apartment
> building.  (Bind alleys?  Hmmm...)
> 
> D. tells the Finn he want to pursue her charge that the
> police
> murdered Pavel.  But he wants to do this "Not in any
> spirit of
> vengefulness.  I am inquiring for my own relief.  I mean,
> in order to
> relieve myself."
> 
> D's stated motive strikes the Finn (and this reader) as
> odd for a
> number of reasons:
> 
> 1.  Vengeance is the namesake of Nechaev's movement.  A
> discussion in
> this dwelling cannot avoid this spirit.
> 
> 2.  Is the "relief" D seeks a quest for evidence
> to prove the Finn's
> charge false, so that he can wash his hands of further
> action (not
> seek justice for a murdered son)?
> 
> 3.  Or is the "relief" D seeks a quest for
> evidence that Pavel didn't
> commit suicide ( that he WAS murdred), and thus D's
> neglect was not
> the cause of his son's death?
> 
> Amidst this discussion with the Finn, with the tall woman
> in the
> background, D has a vision of Pavel and his
> "chosen" bride:
> 
> "But who can this bride be?  Can she be the tall young
> woman (nearly
> as tall as Pavel) with the piercing blue eyes?"
> 
> And then:
> 
> "the tall girl leaves the room.  The rustle of her
> dress and a waft of
> lavender as she passes awake in him an unexpected flutter
> of desire.
> Desire for what?  For the girl herself?  Surely not – or
> not only.
> […]  Something to do […] with finding himself in
> Pavel's world,
> Pavel's erotic surround."
> 
> Later the tall woman invites him to sit with her at a small
> table and
> then aggressively twice nudges his foot with hers,
> "instep to instep."
>  And:
> 
> "A disturbing excitement creeps over him.  Like chess
> […]
> Deliberateness and tawdriness [because these advances are
> being
> witnessed by a child] […] Where could they have learned
> so much about
> him, about his desires?"
> 
> But moments later, when:
> 
> "he has a felling he knows more than he wants to know.
>  The foot
> [becomes] […] No longer a a foot but a boot" 
> [notice the near rhyme
> of foot & boot]
> 
> And immediately the vision of Pavel and his bride returns,
> with the
> bride "obscured."  The implication of all of
> these visions and scenes
> becomes clear.  Do you know where this is leading?  D
> knows, but
> represses the clear reality before him:  "Pavel would
> not be playing
> these games."
> 
> Clearly Pavel and Nechaev were lovers.
> 
> More next week…

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com