the Merle center

Tue Feb 28 10:07:26 CST 2012

I was thinking this, too. Maybe it's just a high-falutin' Bonanza.
On Feb 28, 2012 11:04 AM, "Bekah" <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> I'd really rather have a moral book without a center (such as AtD) than a
> center without empathetically based morals (Lolita).   I think this is a
> personal preference - I realize I have added a criterion to  the moral
> issue because one could possibly say that Lolita is a moral book -
> nevertheless,  I don't like it - I can't detach myself from the issues.
>
> Wouldn't you say that Frank Traverse is a sort of moral center?  Or is his
> presence not pervasive enough?  Is there a moral center for each "section?"
>   I'm thinking that there is certainly an immoral center (of sorts)  in
> Scarsdale Vibe and sons so their opposite might be the Traverses.  ?
>
> Bekah
>
>
> On Feb 28, 2012, at 7:16 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
> > I've harped on this too many times before, but the reason ATD falls
> short (for me) is that there's no protagonist.  It's not that a protagonist
> provides a "moral" center, so much as a point of reference.  Slothrop isn't
> the first person we meet in GR, and he leaves early, but his journey is our
> journey.  Oedipa and Doc Sportello have conventional protagonist roles,
> which is why COL49 and IV are probably the most accessible of Pynchon's
> books (I love the first, dislike the second).  V. and M&D both have dual
> protagonists, which is better than no protagonist.  Only ATD stands out as
> having none.  I can understand why he did it - it's a reflection of the
> time it takes place, when quantum theory is upending Newtonian physics,
> Europe is fragmenting, etc. The center no longer holds.  But it's hard to
> read a book that has no central character.  We have no place in it.  I
> really do think that's what Pynchon's driving at - he wants us to feel as
> dislocated in time and space as his multitude of characters do.  But I just
> didn't want to spend that much time not caring.  I prefer to join Slothrop
> or Oedipa in their paranoid journeys, than to be jostled around like a
> random gas molecule for 1000+ pages.
> >
> > Laura
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Keith Davis
> > Sent: Feb 27, 2012 11:21 PM
> > To: barbie gaze
> > Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
> > Subject: Re: the Merle center
> >
> > 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...
> >
> > On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 7:21 PM, barbie gaze <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>
> 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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> >> To: P-list <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."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > www.innergroovemusic.com
>
>
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