Dies Irae

[Mark Kohut]

yes, I do..
 
and yes...maybe that is the point, I now see......

From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
To: Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com>; pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Thursday, July 7, 2011 10:11 AM
Subject: Re: Dies Irae

On 7/7/2011 1:50 AM, Erik T. Burns wrote:
>> Gaddis is about Self-Help. (I suspect he's against it)
> Gaddis is in favor of self improvement through work. What he's against
> is getting third-party help, esp. what he sees as the ridiculous, i.e.
> psychoanalysts, Dale Carnegie, art critics, the radio, unserious
> religions...

I probably wouldn't disagree with that.

Do other readers find all the clever play with historical/cultural 
knowledge that the characters (and Gaddis himself) engage in rather 
annoying?

Maybe that's the  point.

P

> On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 10:07 PM, Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>  wrote:
>> On 7/6/2011 1:41 PM, edmoorester at gmail.com wrote:
>>> Another book where a reference to "Dies Irae" pops up is "VALIS" by Philip
>>> K. Dick.
>>>
>>> Kai wrote:
>>> "At the beginning of chapter three it is reported how Horselover
>>> Fat took a large dosage of Acid in 1964, got catapulted out of time,
>>> started to speak Latin and thought the Dies irae to have come.
>>> For eight hours Fat tried to pacify God's rage by wailing and praying in
>>> Latin.
>>> No other possibility, Fat later said."
>>>
>>>
>>> I have tried to read Valis multiple times but just get stuck.
>>>
>>> Dick has another book "Deus Irae" "God's Wrath" which I might never read
>>> although I enjoy a lot of his work
>>>
>>>
>>> Mark noted:
>>> They got rid of texts that smacked of a negative spirituality inherited
>>> from the
>>> Middle Ages. Thus they removed such familiar and even beloved texts as the
>>> Libera me, Domine, the Dies Irę, and others that overemphasized judgment,
>>> fear,
>>> and despair. These they replaced with texts urging Christian hope and
>>> arguably
>>> giving more effective expression to faith in the resurrection.
>>>
>>>
>>> I guess I can see the image problem the song might give the church.
>>>
>>> In that same vein if I were the canon editor I would have stricken
>>> Revelations from the New Testament. . . nasty apocalyptic imagery
>>> that a lot of goofballs have misappropriated imho. . .heck maybe even
>>> John Gospel which has some apocalyptic stuff too more so than other
>>> gospels
>>>
>>> Revelations has supplied an infinite amount of grist for hollywood
>>> and I am sure there are many screenplays waiting to get greenlighted
>>>
>>> I wonder if Daniel Goleman's "Social Intelligence" and Malcolm
>>> Gladwell's stuff is in some ways a successor to Dale Carnegie's stuff?
>>>
>>> It is touching to read the amazon.com ratings on "How to Win Friends etc"
>>> and see how many people it has helped
>>>
>>> ed
>> Isn't all this type of book pretty much the same thing Dr. Phil is pushing.
>>
>> Americans have always been very tuned in to the project of self help. Easy
>> ways to become better
>> "more effective" people.  To make more money in the case of Dale Carnegie.
>> But The Five Foot Shelf  (Harvard Classics)  alluded to yesterday is kind of
>> the same thing.  Get culture in fifteen minutes a day.  I imagine that was
>> pretty much what a Harvard education amounted to a hundred years ago. The
>> culture of the people in The Recognitions isn't used to make money of course
>> but it's main use seems to be in being clever and  funny.
>>
>> Maybe if Pynchon is about Work, Gaddis is about Self-Help. (I suspect he's
>> against it)
>>
>> P
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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