TRTR Chapter 6 - hosting apologia / initial quotation

[alice wellintown]

The old man and the brothers in the _The Brothers  K_ are Doubles, or
in Conrad's phrase "Secret Sharers" or psychological terms alter egos,
but there is, as George Gibian notes in his essay, "The Theme of the
Double, Sylvia Plath, and Dostoyevski"  (included in the Norton
Vritical Crime and Punishment), there is another use of the double,
that is, the split or divided self. Gibian notes that Roskalnikov
means "divided" or split." As one astute reader here noted, the name
Otto is a palindrom and that this fact supports a larger theme, Otto's
reflection(s). A third double, also described in Gibian's essay, is
the encounter of the doubles (Conrad's secret sharerer), Ivan and his
murdering half-brother and the Devil.

Otto is a brilliant invention. Not many can pull off an Otto and not
fall into mechanical mouthpiece or the coffin of convention. Just to
tie this to the Roth vs. Nabokov, Pynchon, Gaddis, thread: Roth can't
make an Otto.

On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 2:04 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Gonna review the chapter again before posting but
>
> My own question related just in general to Dostoevsky and The Recognitions.
> Gaddis does go deep into certain psychological explanations for behavior....Like
> a depth psychologist, from Dostoevsky thru Nietzsche, even ole Hank James and,
> of course,
> turned into an artful non-science by Freud and his wake, he reveals dark truths
> behind
> the fraudulent surface.............................
>
> Yet, he makes lotsa savage fun of psychoanalysis---which includes a suicide
> doc----as if
> it .................................??????
>
> Does he think, ya think, that although depth truths are true once turned into a
> societal occupation
> they are absurd in the purported practice?
>
> maybe akin to religious sentiment once institutionalized into Churches?
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sun, May 29, 2011 6:34:24 PM
> Subject: Re: TRTR Chapter 6 - hosting apologia / initial quotation
>
> The allusion to The Brothers K implies that we are, as B/T uttle says
> in Brazil, all in it together or as Dostoyevsky novel argues, all
> responsible for one another.  And, the daisy chain in this chapter,
> where Otto, who is more like the father, Fyodor Pavlovich, than a boy
> abused by school boys alluded to directly in the quotation, schemes
> and lies; his machinations seem to confirm Ivan K's view of man: Man
> is an insect.
>
>