the Merle center
Paul Mackin
mackin.paul at verizon.net
Tue Feb 28 13:13:32 CST 2012
On 2/28/2012 10:16 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.
>
I have to agree with Laura on this. I can identify with Slothrup more
than I can with any of the main characters of AtD.
That kind of connection to a novel is necessary for me. I read AtD at
least twice (long ago) and the writing in many places is about as good
as it gets. But it's not a satisfying story because I never cared what
happened.
P
> 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
> <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 withmuch 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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