Sunday morning lit crit sermonizing

[Mark Kohut]

Against a tide of opinion here on the plist, I'm gonna say again:  If a writer deals with religious/metaphysical ideas in his works---
Jane Austen and others like her do not, say---then the beliefs can be read, even if the writer just satirizes almost all beliefs. 
A writer's vision, like the expressed visions of many plisters, inhabits him if he is any good, IS how he perceives, is how
he sees the scenes, symbols, characters that he finds 'symbolic form' for. 
 
But it ain't easy and ultimate readings vary and that leads many to say there are no evident beliefs we can infer. To differ over same is just what makes reading the greats like life. Said of  Shakespeare [that he shows no ultimate beliefs] and is true yet various plays show various metaphysical beliefs, from Catholicism---scholars  have found 
in recent decades external reasons to argue Sheakspeare was---thru nihilism [what Bloom says is the meaning of Measure for Measure,
thru the What?of King Lear] [By the bye, Bloom on "M for M" is an outlier and I still can't evn quite get, therefore agree with his reading. ]
 
I would argue, for getting the goat of some plisters, that V. as the portrait of the Wasteland that is the Western World embodies the beliefs
of an atheist, a modern man who knows Adams' God of the middle ages is dead. OR ELSE, like Eliot, he sees the dead West from a
religious perspective that goes so far back and is so deep inside [in him; Mass every day] that it illumines the secular present. 
 
It seems that all the religious tropes, planted allusions---The Word, anticipated epiphanic moments, mysterious 'miracles'---in Lot 49\
building to that thematically great ending, might make the case for an embodied agnosticism....Almost a book-length metaphor for, yes?
 
And, I have argued that Against the Day comically savages just about all ultimate belief systems, including the Buddhism that many find a remaining
posiitive---see the cover; see its fail-safe belief system. There is the fullest presentation of the religious-like beauty of THIS world, what we
have labeled pantheism or panentheism, 
YET I think TRP puts into this work more examples of the Unexplained ---Hamlet's "There
are more mysteries in the world, Horatio, than in all your philosophy".....than in any other work.....
 
So, as I said, ultimates ain't easy......
 

From: Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com>
To: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> 
Cc: bandwraith at aol.com; pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 10:01 PM
Subject: Re: List of agnostics


As a "recovering Southern Baptist", I can "testify" to the difficulty involved in turning loose of this addiction. I've taken some of those alternative paths, and finally arrived at something that works for me. It has taken a long time. Even though one may realize rationally that the fictions or myths are just that, the emotional effects are so deep that I'm not sure that can ever be totally changed or removed. Looking back and forward, it has been a fun and interesting ride. 

In regards to this, I think that TRP's approach to religion/spirituality does nothing to indicate any kind of belief system of his own, but rather exposes our weaknesses and gullibility. He handles it with humor and sensitivity at the same time. 


On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:

Religion will persist because of human psychology. We all go through the phase of believing, in some degree, that if we say our magic formulae just right we will get what we ask for. Some people stay with that, many more move along to finding solace in a group that reinforces magic thinking and belief in myth as truth. Others continue along to faith in reason, science, whatever. The move beyond god and devil is often terribly traumatic. "Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of God. Wandering, wandering in endless night," says Mr. Morrison. Of course, he was stoned, immaculate. 
>
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>On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 8:15 AM, <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:
>
>But if they knew they were immortal, they wouldn't work to preserve the
>>past. Unless, they were convinced that their immortality was the result
>>of a particular past, or pathway. That is, a specific series of choices
>>made, or, in the case of "The Elect," predetermined, which will result
>>in, or signify, their immortality. Religion is the sanctification of a
>>particular history over a field of passed over, or "profane" histories.
>>Only the sanctified path leads to immortality. The entrenched, the
>>status quo, the crew of The Preserved, all of the social, political and
>>economically empowered- soon to become the past with the sweep of each
>>new generation- seek to pass along their privilege to those most
>>willing to preserve their legacy. Religion persists because it
>>persists. What better evidence of its truth?
>>
>>Of course, it helps to make "acid" and other heresies illegal, else why
>>worry about the manicured lawns and the yachts, or the painted
>>ceilings? Sorry, Doc, when the fogs burns away, The Angels will still
>>be in control.
>>
>> ‘See, I am coming soon; my reward is with
>>me, to repay according to everyone’s work.
>>I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and
>>the last, the beginning and the end."
>>
>>There's a fog upon L.A.
>>And my friends have lost their way
>>We'll be over soon they said
>>Now they've lost themselves instead.
>>Please don't be long, please don't you be
>>very long. Please don't be long or I may be asleep......
>>
>>
>>
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>-- 
>"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>


-- 
http://www.innergroovemusic.com/
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