TMOP Chapter 9 - Nechaev

[Bekah]

I think you have something there.   Coetzee certainly cleaned up  
Nechaev from the way  Dostoevsky's fictionalized him in Demons.  It  
feels like Coetzee is focused on D's own inner torments of various  
kinds.

Bekah


On Oct 23, 2008, at 4:25 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> D. sees thru his desires and his Christianity darkly. Feels desire.  
> Coetzee stresses erotic polymorphousness of the group?. Sees  
> Nechaev's [atheistic] Party as a Christianity substitute--N., the  
> righteous Christ. Rejects 'vengeance'--eye for an eye---as not in  
> his [Christian] Bible.
> Says that to be founded on assasination is to be self-condemned in  
> meaning/goal.
>
> Coetzee's anti-violence beliefs, as Bekah educated us, in full  
> evidence here?
>
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 10/22/08, Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> From: Bekah <Bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
>> Subject: Re: TMOP Chapter 9 - Nechaev
>> To: "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>> Cc: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 9:30 PM
>> Yes,   wrestling came to my mind, too.   As in Jacob
>> wrestling with
>> the angel.  Jacob defrauded his brother,  Esau and felt
>> profoundly
>> guilty and afraid.   An angel came to him (Esau perhaps)
>> and Jacob
>> grabbed him,  would not let him go, even when Jacob was
>> badly
>> wounded,  until he was given a blessing.   Jacob recounted
>> that he
>> had seen the face of God.
>>
>> 0nly in this case, D. is fighting Pavel - He won't let
>> Pavel go until
>> Pavel (or someone/something) blesses him.   (I won't go
>> on due to
>> spoilers and besides I don't think this is a very good
>> analogy but I
>> just kept thinking of a wounded D. wrestling with an angel
>> until he
>> got a blessing.
>>
>> Bekah
>>
>>
>> On Oct 22, 2008, at 6:22 AM, David Morris wrote:
>>
>>> TMOP Chapter 9 - Nechaev
>>>
>>> In the apartment before the tall woman's identity
>> is discovered, D.
>>> reasons with the Finn and warns her that her soul is
>> in peril should
>>> she follow through with murdering someone from the
>> Vengeance List.
>>> Then, after these words, "I have a duty toward my
>> son that I cannot
>>> evade," a "heavy silence" befalls him.
>> His part in this dialogue
>>> halts, and then:
>>>
>>> "From far away comes a scream that must be his
>> own.   _There will be a
>>> gnashing of teeth_ - the words flash before him, then
>> there is an end.
>>>
>>> This Biblical quote is from Matthew 13: 49-50 in which
>> after speaking
>>> hidden wisdom in parables to the multitudes, the
>> parable of the wheat
>>> and the tares,  later in private explains their
>> meaning.  It is
>>> meaningful that D. refers to the explanation of a
>> parable because D is
>>> constantly inventing and wrestling with metaphor, and
>> a parable is
>>> described as an extended metaphor.
>>>
>>> "So shall it be at the end of the world: the
>> angels shall come forth,
>>> and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall
>> cast them into the
>>> furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing
>> of teeth."
>>>
>>> It unclear to whom this scream is aimed, the
>> People's Vengeance or D
>>> himself in failing the "duty he cannot
>> evade."
>>>
>>> These voices D hears, which seem to be coming from
>> within himself, are
>>> a part of a pattern in which all of D's words seem
>> to "come" to him
>>> without his volition.  Somewhere in the book he says
>> he "trusts" this
>>> flow of words emanating from him, and lets them flow
>> without resisting
>>> any of them.  He sees them as a source of truth.  In
>> this regard D is
>>> a kind of shaman/mystic who receives revelations via
>> possession.
>>>
>>> More later…
>>>
>
>
>
>