Back to AtD...p960

[Mark Kohut]

Like. 
One way of reading of AtD seems clearly to be: all theological preconceptions, ideas, etc. are inadequate for whatever 
is the case. 


________________________________
From: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> 
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2012 4:33 PM
Subject: Re: Back to AtD...p960


A Benedictine monk once loaned me his copy of The Cloud of Unknowing. I didn't make the explicit connection until reading your insights here, Mark, but I think this little summary from wikipedia is an adequate teaser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloud_of_Unknowing Wasn't Cyprian a Cambridge lad? 

I'm not so sure about P's singling out for dissing the contemplatives, though. It seems to me he is equally ready to dis those too eager to act without considering the repercussions of their actions. Benny and the Crew, Slothrop, Lake, maybe even Zoyd and Mucho might be examples of characters inclined to action and reaction as opposed to the over-contemplative (Mason? Roger M?), though, in the end, I am inclined to see all as aspects of the human psyche. You got your poles and then there's all that's in between.


On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 8:56 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

If Cyprian and his decision(s) are some kind of upbeat authorial value embodiment in
>AtD, "the Heyschasts, who might as well have been Japanese Buddhists---they sat in their cells,
>gazing at their navels, waiting to be enfolded in a glorious light they believed was the same light
>Peter, James, and John had witnessed at theTransfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor.......
>are not. 
>
>the place where human nature met God---wikipedia describing the theological import of
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfiguration_of_Jesus"
>
>"perhaps they asked themselves forms of your question as well, as a sort of koan. What is it that
>is born of that light? Oddly, if one reads the Gospel accounts, the emphasis in all three is not on
>an excess of light but a deficiency---the Transfiguration occurred at best under a peculiar sort of half-light.
>'There came a cloud and overshadowed them", as Luke puts it. Those omphalopsychoi might have
>seen a holy light, but its link with the Transfiguration is doubtful.
>
>A little hermenuetical theology from our God-obsessed writer? Knows the Gospel accounts yet, 
>gives us another metaphor for agnosticism? Clouds. Or another dissing of religious belief altogether
>even if Buddhist. As above, so below?
>
>Certainly a dissing of navel-gazing whether Western or Eastern? Action matters, even if it is Cyprian's
>self-reclusive action? Is Cyprian and his monastery decision a metaphor for the reclusive dedication of
>our writer? 
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