the Merle center

[barbie gaze]

http://www.upne.com/1-58465-122-9.html

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 11:40 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>wrote:

>  On 2/27/2012 10:13 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
>  Lots here, thinking on all of it but picking up first the Lew is a
> cypher remark.
>
> Yes, Lew is....he is presented to us as driven out of his old life, evev
> getting a new identity (if that one person's
> remark about betraying his identity is to be taken at face-value)...he has
> no backstory in this novel.......why?
>
> If his Unknown Sin is a metaphor for Original Sin, then his new life is to
> find his way in the real world, the world,
> according to the Original Sin myth, of Aging and Death [those words in
> caps turn up in the later discussion of
> time travel immortality]. He is now out of the psychic garden of Eden, if
> that makes any sense and his quest is to
> understand that---or just accept it? And that is thematic? (I say Yes )
>
> To speak to Bled Welder (and others), the moral center of a novel sorta
> means the character, if there is one, who
> sees reliably [nods to Alice W.] in a 'what's real?' world. Lew is
> characterized as very observant. He seems to report
> honestly, even about his confusions and ignorance. As a detective, he
> hunts for facts and truth. (Pugnax accepts him aboard
> The Inconvenience, no little thing if you remember an upcoming bit during
> the Chums' crisis of Authority when we learn that Pugnax
> would know of any turncoats in their midst).
>
> Lew interacts with the major other plotlines: the Chums, Anarchists, (some
> of) the English  events, and with the Traverses.---hence his
> centrality.  He asks "moral' questions, such as about 'the innocent
> bourgeoisie". I take his questioning of some anarchists' beliefs
> as Columbo--like; he knows the simple human rights and wrongs so they
> condemn themselves with their answers.
> He gets some of P's thematic'answers'...with the toilet reading at the
> end, for example, and with much more.
>
> Is he called a pilgrim further along and I can't remember or is that what
> an early reader/writer has said? (about him or about
> us, the readers?) Anyway, he is like a secular pilgrim trying to
> understand (some of) the world this novel purports to illumine.
>
>
> How would you gentlemen feel about elevating not Lew but Cyprian to the
> "moral center" of the novel.
>
> Although I think we'd have to admit that the idea of a "moral center" is
> pretty problematic in modern culture and society (since Jane Austen, say).
>
> Fragmentation, role playing, other-directed-ness , being thrust about by
> the demands of modern existence--but no matter--let's just say that any
> "moral center" worth considering will have to involve a change to better
> from worse and that such change will have to be based on real rather than
> surreal events in the novel's character development.
>
> Pynchon isn't known for developing his characters in realistic terms,
> although he's shown improvement over time--compare Lake with Katje--but
> Cyprian really does undergo profound moral change for the better in the
> course of the story.
>
> From working for the British Foreign Office or Secret Service, where only
> the most pragmatic considerations apply to one's ethical behavior, to a
> monastic vocation, where goodness as it is common understood by all men and
> women can reign unhindered by the exigencies of modern existence.
>
> But again, isn't there something wrong with this picture.
>
> P
>
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>  *From:* Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com><michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> *To:* P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org> <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Sent:* Sunday, February 26, 2012 10:32 PM
> *Subject:* the Merle center
>
> as I have tried by the time-honored method (in which one protesteth too
> mucheth) to make the case (by indirection) for Lew as moral center (or
> centre)
>
> and now append a caveat - I did nothing to prove Lew wasn't very helpful
> to the Cohen
>
> but moving on to a gentle compare / contrast
>
> Lew - conscious of sin
> fulfills a program of redemption with Drave et al
> does work for White City
> redeems himself by leaving it
> finds a non-destructive use for dynamite (it gets him high!)
> survives a bomb
> learns the intricacies of the Tarot and pursues bombthrowers in London
> sensitive to the beauties of eventide in Chicago
>
> now for...
> Merle - passionate about photography
> marries a pregnant widow
> accepts her betrayal with some grace
> raises Dally a little too libertarianly some might say
> falls in with the Candlebrow crowd
> works on inventions and suchlike
> makes friends with ball lightning
> finds ginseng
>
> sensitive to Dalley ("As Merle watched her sleep, an unmanly warmth about
> the eyeballs would surprise him.  Her hearth-colored hair in a careless
> child's snarl.  She was somewhere off wandering those dangerous dark
> fields, maybe even finding there some version of himself, of Erlys, that
> he'd never get to hear about, among the sorrowful truths, being lost, being
> found, flying, journeying to places too detailed to be anything but real,
> meeting the enemy, dying, being born over and over....He wanted to find a
> way in, to look out for her at least, keep her from the worst if he
> could....)
>
> and capable of seguing from appreciation of a sunset all the way into a
> "Barkis-is-willing" moment - p 506-7
> "You could smell crude oil in the air.  The first wheelfolk of summer, in
> bright sweaters and caps and striped socks, went whirring gaily in
> battalion strength along the great viaduct on tandem bicycles, which seemed
> to be a city craze that year.  Bicycle bells going nonstop, the massed
> choruses of them, in all sorts of ragged harmonies, loud as church bells on
> Sunday though maybe with a finer texture.  Roughnecks went in and out of
> saloon doors and sometimes windows.  Elms cast deep shade over yards and
> streets, forests of elms back when there were still elms in Cleveland,
> making visible the flow of the breezes, iron railings surrounding the
> villas of the well-off, roadside ditches full of white clover, a sunset
> that began early and stayed late, growing to a splendor that had her and
> Merle gazing at it in disbelief, and then at each other....
> ""It ain't a Euclid Avenue mansion, you may've noticed that already, but
> it's warm and solid built, there's a leaf-spring suspension of my own
> design that you'd think you were riding on a cloud."
> ""Sure, well being an angel I'm used to that."  But the brightest part of
> that luridly exploding childhood sky was now right behind her face, and
> some of her hair was loose, and she could detect in his gaze enough of what
> he must be seeing, and they both fell silent."
>
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