AtD gold: the defense

[Paul Mackin]

On 2/26/2012 3:44 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> re: soul....me too...and I cannot believe you sent this today
> as I have been working on a soul-TRP-related post.....
> out of this discussion

Glad to be of service :-)

One thing I draw the line at vis a vis Souls is their 
Transmigration--met-him-pike-hoses.

Make that two things--their immortality.

P
>
> *From:* Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
> *To:* Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, February 26, 2012 12:53 PM
> *Subject:* Re: AtD gold: the defense
>
> On 2/25/2012 9:50 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>> Surely directed at me as much as at Barbie Gaze......
>>
>> I'll take the hit.....I think it is clear that TRP uses certain 
>> tropes in certain ways
>> and I think he is a writer with a vision.
>> Writers with vision see things, history, people, situations, through 
>> eyeglasses
>> that judge...the judging is a perspective that we can always call 
>> 'moral'--
>> if I or they are 'moralistic' or narrow then we fail.
>> Any writer who lasts, who is worth reading, can be commented on 
>> simplistically---
>> which I am sure I do---yet two things:
>>
>> 1) the embedding in the work is not (necessarily) simplistic
>> 2) 'reducing a meaning' to a simplistic equation is often just part 
>> of adding up
>> all of those simplistic bits to build to that vision.
>>
>> It is how we see TRP use iron, steel, crystal and industrial 
>> machines--and
>> much more to 'say something' about the world created by that 
>> "industrial revolution"---
>> it is pervasive--even in offhand similes....that, I say, is a 'moral 
>> vision", part of a moral vision.
>> it is simplistic to say baldly that "he is against the industrial 
>> revolution" "he is a Luddite" yet
>> that is part of his vision fer sure. yes?
>>
>> As his meanings of grace are part of that vision, yes?
>>
>> Yes, this on gold below is pretty simplistic, sorry, but rereading 
>> AtD this time after
>> Inherent Vice and GR again, with the stuff on gold in them, I can see
>> how steadily he works the metaphor and links it to the perspective of
>> "Shit, Money & The Word" . And "the tyranny of the Gold 
>> Standard" seems to be taken straight as it comes from the narrator---like
>> the words on Lake as virgin bride.
>> ....."what Cross of Gold will we be crucified on now [without Gold]?"
>> is more wrenching, more insightful in AtD when one---at least 
>> I---know all the times TRP
>> refers to gold and the struggle to earn some.
>> I was still confused about Nixon and the Gold Standard and I am still 
>> wondering
>> this reading about silver, too.
>>
>> I suggest Pynchon is as interesting for the breadth and depth of his 
>> associative poetic tropes
>> and his moral vision of history, the world, we in it, as for his 
>> incredibly interesting
>> metaphors, surreal happenings, over-the-top events, and symbolic 
>> characters etc.....
>>
>> I say we can't read him without thoughts of what the words 
>> mean.....This is so simplistically true I hesitated
>> writing it. yet, think on that. If asked, what would you say about 
>> certain aspects?..........
>>  Lots of differing readings, of course yet lots that seem wrong too. 
>> Certain ones cannot both be right
>>  The ideas which can be reductively found in any writer are not what 
>> make the great.
>> a great writer. John Leonard once wrote in a review of five novels, 
>> one by Chabon, that one theme of all might be said that there was 
>> nothing like a
>> perfect summer day when you were a boy....yet each book did that 
>> differently and was also more than that....
>>
>> Every scene, every character, every plot turn and almost every line 
>> in Shakespeare carries MEANING,
>> (even if sometimes that meaning is that they were "just bantering", 
>> just counterpointing a theme, just being 'real' amidst
>> the patterned action.). His sonnets were 'summed up' in banal truths 
>> the first time I read them, yet........the richness
>> is in the way and all the nuances and associations, many seemingly 
>> half-buried.
>>
>> That is what I believe about Pynchon, who was thinking EVERY moment 
>> he wrote, i suggest,
>> even, of course, if some of the prose is just "atmospheric" ( a 
>> legitimate
>> goal in fiction), as with any Tolstoy or David Foster Wallace. But he 
>> also embeds ideas everywhere
>> and I love trying to see them....get them.
>>
>> It is the way our best readers from Samuel Johnson, through Keats, 
>> Coleridge and Trilling (or you name them) write about what they read
>>  and --we call them 'critics' usually. But I am not them, just me 
>> flailing like someone in The Recognitions. Not just flailing but
>> waving. Sometimes while drowning.
>> I need to just point out subtle beauty as I see it more too. we 
>> listers quote often from all the toher books but seldom from AtD. 
>> Many think it
>> weak, or the weakest. I think we have yet to 'get' a lot of 
>> it----even after all we did/do get....
>>
>> Not any plisters but SOME  are always against any "translation" into 
>> meaning
>> because they feel "it misses the experience"; it takes "the 
>> fun/richness/interest" out of the text, etc.
>> All true but for many in my experience that means "I don't know", 
>> don't believe in thinking it through just "feeling it",
>> "your reading is not the only one"----so true, which is why I love 
>> rich books and other opinions. I have read too many books
>> ---unpublished ones that should stay that way---that are as 
>> simplistic as my tired remarks on a genius's meaning. They are
>> so narrow in meaning they are their own translation.
>>
>> Sorry this is so long and more sorry that I am boring some here and 
>> with the posts......I would appreciate the continued
>> pointing out of simplicities so I can try to express them with more 
>> nuance and aggregated examples.
>>
>> You (can) delete therefore you exist.
>
> You're not boring us, Mark.
>
> I DO want to toss out what for me is a good way to read Pynchon.
>
> For me, fiction isn't something to figure out.
>
> This is notwithstanding the fact that Pynchon is a difficult writer 
> and it is often necessary to go to the reference library in order to 
> know what he is talking about.
>
> No problem.
>
> My solution ISN'T to degrade meaning, but rather to elevate the  
> meaning of meaning.
>
> Instead of seeking meaning for the rational mind (which some p-listers 
> seem to find necessary and others clunky) I would rather find meaning 
> for the Soul.
>
> Pynchon's greatest strength as a writer is his gift for stimulating 
> the imagination. The originality of his words is often breathtaking.
>
> This gives us pleasure on a conscious level--it also washes over our 
> Unconscious, our Psyche, our Imagination, if you will, whatever you 
> want to call that part of us beyond the rational, beyond time even.  
> James Hillman would probably call the process soul building.
>
> This is the MEANING I want. (my soul needs help wherever it can get it)
>
> P
>
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>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com <mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com>>
>> To: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com <mailto:richard.romeo at gmail.com>>
>> Cc: barbie gaze <barbiegaze at gmail.com <mailto:barbiegaze at gmail.com>>; 
>> pynchon-l at waste.org <mailto:pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 11:09 AM
>> Subject: Re: AtD gold
>>
>> I agree, but I've stopped calling these simplistic equations banal.
>> If true, Pynchon would be one of the least interesting writers on
>> earth.
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 8:25 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:richard.romeo at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> > nice words but high falutin bullshit
>> > this is bad; this is good.
>> > try again fella
>> >
>> >
>> > On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 7:24 PM, barbie gaze <barbiegaze at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:barbiegaze at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Gold is the cloven foot of all devils. America is the silver lie 
>> in the devil's garden.
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com 
>> <mailto:markekohut at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> "After the repeal of the Silver Act, gold resumed its tyrannical 
>> rule".....[maybe not an exact quote].
>> >>>
>> >>> Gold is bad shit in AtD, in TRP in general, and a symbol for 
>> America's striving for money?  Shit, Money, etc...
>>
>
>
>

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