TRTR, Pt 2, C 2 "does there exist such a thing as mermaids, sar?"

[Richard Ryan]

And what might the standard view be?

On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 10:31 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
> On 7/28/2011 10:03 AM, Richard Ryan wrote:
>>
>> Right - and these qualities that Wyatt has, of being set apart from
>> and against the people who surround him, and of his strangeness being
>> defined by his contact with "the numinous" - these are the
>> characteristics that link him distinctively to the spiritually
>> tortured heroes of Dostoevsky.
>
> I believe this sort of thing is known as authorial  creation of a
> mythological universe, of a vision of reality in terms of human concerns and
> values, but going beyond our usual empirical assumptions about the nature of
> reality.
>
> Pynchon makes heavy use of it in GR.
>
> It doesn't mean the authors view of nonmythological view of reality is any
> but the standard one.
>
> P
>
>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 9:05 AM, David Morris<fqmorris at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Yes, I was agreeing.  And (like your point to mark re. Gaddis/Elliot)
>>> I think one of the main points of the book is the degradation of
>>> humanity by modern culture (which is what links him to Pynchon).  So
>>> many of the characters in the NYC scenes of TR are so much like
>>> Pynchon's Whole Sick Crew in V.  The ones that contrast with them
>>> (Wyatt) have a deeply spiritual side, and have brushes with the
>>> numinous.
>>>
>>> David Morris
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 5:59 PM, Richard Ryan<himself at richardryan.com>
>>>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I *think* David may be agreeing with me (I think).   That sympathy is
>>>> precisely why I wouldn't (at this point in my journey into The
>>>> Recognitions) want to describe Gaddis as a "non-believer."   Aware
>>>> agnostic?  Romantic skeptic?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 5:50 PM, David Morris<fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> It's not only that Gaddis WROTE those supernatural sections into TR,
>>>>> it's that he seems sympathetic to those sections, to their having
>>>>> "really" happened in the world of this novel.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 4:32 PM, Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>
>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 7/27/2011 4:45 PM, Richard Ryan wrote:.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If we think that Gaddis is an atheist and a materialist, how do we
>>>>>>> account for mystical/magical events in The Recognitions?  I.e, Wyatt
>>>>>>> seeing his mother's ghost on her death; Wyatt's recuperation after
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> sacrifice of the Barbary Ape; the supernaturally evil power that
>>>>>>> Brown
>>>>>>> has over Wyatt, etc.?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also there's no inconsistency in an author's writing about
>>>>>> supernatural
>>>>>> goings-on and also not believing they could happen?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Also the reverse is true.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>
>
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