the Merle center

[Paul Mackin]

On 2/27/2012 11:21 PM, Keith Davis wrote:
> Seems to me...(letting myself off the hook right here at the beginning),
> there isn't a "moral center character" here, and that's a long way from
> GR. Maybe that's what I'm missing here (Laura?). It's a great read
> (listen), but in the end, who is the "hero", anti- or otherwise? This is
> my second time through it, and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip both times,
> but there's no clear "jolt" like at the end of GR. Maybe that's the
> point? Or, maybe there is no point, or no single point? Late night
> ravings from a non lit-crit fictionophile...

Since people are no longer thought to have moral centers, how can novels 
have them?

P


>
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 7:21 PM, barbie gaze <barbiegaze at gmail.com
> <mailto:barbiegaze at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     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 <mailto: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>
>>         <mailto:michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>>         *To:* P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org> <mailto: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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