IVIV (13) scene one question

[Michael Bailey]

 Robin Landseadel wrote:
> John Bailey wrote:
>
>> Doc doesn't exactly have any sleepless, bedsheet-clutching nights
>> after killing two people.
>

> There's scenes of unbridled violence committed by "Them" in Pynchon's other
> books but never before by one of the schlemiels—it's as though the author is
> breaking the contract with his readers in this scene.
>

Frank in AtD does much, much worse violence.

as to Gaia, the steady state sought by this entity takes in
myriad fluctuations of its constituents, including all sorts
of supercedings of individual life forms by fair means or foul...
so I don't think she looks askance at killing per se.

...the old-time 'ligion Pynchon mentions in the Sloth essay
is rigorous enough to oppose Doc's violence, though....

Doc's violence at the crucial moment is similar to such moments
in much of the detective fiction I've read, and movies like Johnny
Mnemonic where I'm inclined to rejoice when he cuts the yakuza
guy's  head off with his own detachable thumb monomolecular weapon...
hoist on his own petard, hurrah!


  Puck is up to his eyeballs in the junk traffic and a killer
who'd do the deed on Doc in a heartbeat if he weren't so essentially
heartless in the first place.

I'm as pacifistic a person as any, and try to keep regular on my
donations to forusa.org, and I've already mentioned my secret desire
for Doc to become a  pacifist too and spend his days in a different
manner, but within the context of the story I have no problem at all
with his actions.

It's like, I revere the people who sought CO status even in WWII,
but when I read about the Battle of the Bulge, I'm glad the winners won,
and have indeed rejoiced at killing's details in those contexts.
I accept uncomplainingly a certain amount of purgatory for those feelings,
but at this stage in my development I can't deny them convincingly,
even to myself.