[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: "Paul Mackin" <mackin.paul at gmail.com>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: Re:



I say The Human........We, any of us, living out our fullest selves and 
deepest qualities. Aristotelian character. The Good Life.

Ways our human nature could, should be manifested. Visions of how THAT has 
been lost.

Me:

The only true paradises are the paradises we have lost.

Was Proust right (seems to me he was often wrong), or are the true paradises 
really the ones that never were?

Is there a golden age to return to, or are you thinking more of an imagined 
(theorized) state of existence that can only be approached with blind trust?

On the subject of freedom, there is one really big thing  Pynchon's people 
are not free from--manipulation through advertizing.

But they remain free to resist it--if they don't have children that is.

(I know I'm leaving out freedom to attain enlightenment through smokin dope)

P.







----- Original Message ----
From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 10:55:32 AM
Subject: Re: Re:


----- Original Message ----- From: "rich" <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
To: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>; "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 10:23 AM
Subject: Re:


> I think Pynchon does the icky better than the human in general

What do we mean by "the human?"

human nature
human kindness
human strength
human weakness
human perversity
human endurance

Hard to label one book as more human than another without specifying.

Is Weissman more perverse than Vond?

Is Frenesi weaker than Jessica?

Is Zoyd more enduring than Slothrop?

Is Mexico tougher than Sasha?

Is anyone very kind?

P

>
> On 4/17/09, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Robin writes right on:
>> Don't forget the author's concern that humans were giving up their
>> human-ness and becoming more like machines. Entropy entered into this
>> equation. "V." was quite concerned with that theme, as I recall. 
>> Vineland's
>> concerned with it as well. And still, it's funny. "Vineland" is more like
>> the work of a "self-recognized human" than "Gravity's Rainbow." But 
>> there's
>> still the same—one might even say paranoid—themes.
>>
>> After GR, Pynchon began to write more of what "the human' WAS, rather 
>> than
>> what it wasn't. Agree?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>