Lew Basnight and the Protestant Ethic

[Joseph Tracy]

" someone who moves beyond..."-Yes, from his introduction Lew is  
beyond the accusations of everyone in his world. He cannot relate to  
original sin, does not remember what his sin is. The grace he  
experiences is found outside the saved /damned, elect/preterite  
paradigm.  He is a detective/a seeker/ an inquirer who avoids taking  
sides  by always inquiring further, thus turning his Kafkaesque  
inquisition on its head.  His inquiry into the dynamiters leads him  
into and through the destructive explosive wave of that culture war  
and into another terrain where Pynchon designates him as the hanged  
man,  suspended between heaven and earth life and death, a major  
player in a cosmic game where the world's tarot deck is continually   
shuffled and played.  And his inquiries start over .
This passage through death parallels the same event in the Traverse  
family including the continuation of dialogue( between Webb and his  
children) and growth beyond the grave. Also both Lew and the  
Traverses follow a movement toward American origins ( European roots,  
resource wars, colonialism, self discovery, scientific inquiry,  
transcendental spiritual quest, economic alchemy).



On Feb 28, 2010, at 7:19 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> P. 41"Penance? You'll do that anyway. You're not Catholic, Mr  
> Basnight?
>    "Presbyterian"
>
> ...Drave tells himn there is no "mathematical' correlation between  
> sin, penance, and redemption..."You are redeemed not through doing  
> penance but because it happens. Or doesn't happen."
>
> Very Calvinist, Protestant predestination echoing, yes?
>
> Drave [check name] continues: "Most people have a wheel riding up  
> on a wire, or some rails in the street, some kind of guide or  
> groove, to keep them moving in the direction of their destiny. But  
> you keep bouncing free.
> Avoiding penance and thereby definition."
>
> Drave drives [sic] home Lew's Calvinist origins....yet, Lew  
> 'bounces free"...[echoes of 'keep it bouncing'?]...........
>
> Doing penance in THAT tradition is to define oneself as needing  
> such because of one's predestination?
>
> TRP gives us in Lew a main character and thread of someone who  
> moves beyond the Saved/Damned, Elect/Preterite condition personally.
>
>
>