the Merle center

Tue Feb 28 10:22:36 CST 2012

I intended that as a reply to Bekah's, but it fits here,too.

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>>
>>

-- 
www.innergroovemusic.com
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