Of Confidence & The Man

[Mark Kohut]

The words on p. 80ff are subtle and good. Thanks much. 

One oft-stated, but seldom so well-expressed, theme of The Confidence Man is summed up herein: Without (some) trust (even) in strangers, democracy is not viable. [I wished I had had a forum to make this point in a different way during the recent 'credit freeze' where no banks would 'trust' each other, threatening all the democracies. I had quotes from the book then.] 

It seems clear from the focus Tore provided that Doc is, generally, committed to trusting even knowing of inevitable betrayals and going through one in IV. 

More indication of Doc as a very positive embodiment, not an unreliable nor ironic protagonist in IV, yes? 

--- On Tue, 9/15/09, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> Subject: Of Confidence & The Man
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 4:07 PM
> Melville and repose: the rhetoric of
> humor in the American Renaissance
> By John Bryant see page 80 It's online.
>