AtD gold: the defense

[Bled Welder]

This may sound dense
and unread, as I most assuring am, I don't know anything about
literature or interpretation thereof, but what is a moral center?  In
a novel, I suppose.  Say one like Against the Day, of which's page
I'm on, 115.  Is this Lew fellow the character to whom the narrator
wishes us to most closely attune our actions, in the world?





I know it's not like a
Home Depot, the Moral Center, I know there are no new-fangled self-checkout stations,
etc.





What do I know about
Lew so far.  Dammit.  The Chums just bought a pearl from Japan and
sailed into the center of the earth. Lew was somewhere in the
Rockies, right, soon sometime before Tesla arrived on the scene.  His
first scene Lew just sort of appears, then the rather large PI agency
takes him in.  Damn I forget what his big important case is so far. 
I'm not aBout to Truck-my-Tome up to this Starbucks...





About as close to a
moral center as I personally get may be this as a good example, see if I'm close: I
could google 'novel moral center', but I'm not going to.  In a
corrupt world, Lew shines as example, non-corrupt, uncorrupted,
incorruptible?  Cipher, oy...




Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2012 17:30:10 -0500
Subject: Re: AtD gold: the defense
From: michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com
To: pynchon-l at waste.org


Paul Mackin wrote:

  
    
  
  Mark Kohut wrote:
    
      
        Surely directed at me as much as at
          Barbie Gaze......

          
 I think there's some personal hostility there and that you, Mark, are not (as Laura Archera Huxley wrote) the target...but parsing that sort of thing is not (as Austin Powers said) my bag, baby, so I will leave it at that




> just
          me flailing like someone in The Recognitions. Not just
          flailing but

          waving. Sometimes while drowning.
         I'm probably not the only one who that resounds with


          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. 

          
in the past, I may have said some things in that vein...not exactly that way - although I recall "Against Interpretation" coming up in a previous discussion, I don't recall agreeing completely with that manifesto --- more like a personal statement that I engage more readily with,some things than others...

the some things being maybea) particular phrases and grammatical excellences in the textb) emotional moments in the stories, particularly affectionate interactionsc) connections to personal experience  

the other things beinga) external philosophies such as Max Weber or po-mo or myths and legends *even though* these are definitely on-topic and I'll admit learning from themb) the assertion of Pynchon as having a pessimistic or paranoid POV 

but in general my strategy is to post on what engages me and listen and learn on the other stuff - case in point your idea of Lew as moral center got me off on an elliptical tangent, but that doesn't mean I wasn't still reading what you were saying
 
---that are as
          simplistic as my tired remarks on a genius's meaning. 

they're not tired remarks...they're actually invigorating (I find myself tired this winter, midnight shift and so forth, and they actually perk me up...also, I was reading up on Vitamin D, you know this time of the year our exposure to sunlight is lessened and it's a good time to drink organic milk or break out the supplements, supposedly vitamin d supplementation is the most bang for your buck vitaminwise that most of us could do
http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2009/10/a-closer-look-at-vitamin-d/) 

          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.  
what I would like some elaboration on is Lew as moral center.I sort of "get" him as fallen man realizing his fallen nature -- but then what?  is his attainment of grace early on maintained or was it just one of those things, a trip to the moon on gossamer wings?

He observes, one might say he exerts his capacity of moral choice - *not* to pursue Kieselguhr - but then what is he doing in England?  is his reaction to the Icosadyad similar to his reaction to the trumped-up anarchist threat?  he lets them pay him to chase that illusion for awhile, simply because he needs a gig, but you can almost see him not buying into it, and he eventually detaches...(details not clear in my mind, although there's that one scene at a party and there's somebody's pond with a lobster crawling out of it like a Tarot picture where he is like - I seem to remember - Mr Jones in the Dylan song, in it but not of it like the kid in the story by Lionel Trilling - so and so would get his "A"... remember that story?...a terrifying one to me as a young dogsbody, almost as horrorsome as Silent Snow Secret Snow or The Lottery....yeesh...
 Lew's more of a cipher than Profane, imho -- 
but I'm ragging on him, just because I like Merle better, not denigrating your statement, basically hoping you will non-ad-hominemly disagree and thrash my arguments while sparing my feelings...

 		 	   		  
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