Grasping for V. Group Read P.S.

[Joseph Tracy]

I like Mark's question and Kai's thoughts too. Emptiness in the  
Buddhist sense is not a negative. An emptiness is a kind of  
precondition for being fully awake. Right now I am reading Benny as  
part of the lostness of the whole sick crew, his being the non- 
directional opposition to Stencil's quest for V. Both begin with a  
palpable sense of lostness and both are pointed toward a journey  
whose main function is to bear witness, to provide a directional  
gaze,  a crack in everything , where the light leaks in and we see  
what may be seen of hell, heaven and what lies between.

  My impression of the structure is a modern, multiple POV  version  
of the Divine Comedy.  It is interesting that Joyce and other anti- 
religious writers admire Dante's work.  In this sense part of the  
function of V. is to act as  Virgil.

I t was easy for me to imagine Tom Waits singing Christmas Eve on old  
East Main.




On Jun 13, 2010, at 8:02 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:

>
> Myself of course I have to think of Heidegger first when I hear  
> "waiting
> presence", but this is a German thing you certainly wouldn't  
> understand ...
>
> Regarding "emptiness" à la Pynchon: It's right in the first song,  
> on the
> first page of my Picador UK edition (p. 9):
>
> "EVERY [emphasis added] night is Christmas Eve on old East Main"
>
> Although the 1960s were a decade of rediscovering religion (cf.  
> Peter L.
> Berger: A Rumor of Angels. Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the
> Supernatural [1969]; dt. Auf den Spuren der Engel. Ffm 1970: Fischer),
> I read Pynchon's words as a catholic's criticism on secularization.
>
> If every night is Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve is profane (and thus
> all the other days of the year, too).
There is a sense in which this universal profanity provides fertile  
ground for the seed of the holy. The Christmas carol stilling the  
bar, snowfall in the rigging, Beatrice the Barmaid  as a shell for  
Beatrice the divine feminine.
>
> Anyone in agreement?
>
> Kai
>
>>
>> And, let's discuss: WTF does "emptiness into waiting presence"  
>> mean?....I've just realized
>> that in the analogy list, the first term is the good term  
>> equalling Benny before he turns onto East Main---dog
>> into wolf---so emptiness is the good term and waiting presence the  
>> bad??? Waiting presence of drunken
>> vomiting sailors, okay, but why 'emptiness" ?
>>