Back to AtD Cyprian again

[Ian Livingston]

I remember being a little inclined to caution on reading this. Not always
one of my more prominent characteristics. What IS in the east? The Great
War in Europe was not an Eastern thing, really, as I understand it, but the
mortal spasm of the Empire succumbing to the triumph of capitalism, and all
very European from start to finish (counting the US as essentially European
on another continent, and an ally of the European capitalist class.) The
war in the East was different. That was two great empires in extremis
struggling for renewed footing, room to expand, and all that fun stuff. The
only thing "building" in the east was the communist rebellion in Russia.

Equanimity is central to Buddhism. Is Cyprian's relaxation into fate an
expression of equanimity, or is it fatalistic? The two can be very
different. Hm. How close am I re-reading AtD?

On Sat, Jul 21, 2012 at 1:10 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> p. 939 "only some form of madness would take anyone east, right now. into
> the jaws
> of what's almost certainly on the move out there."
> What is he alluding to? the Repressed returning? War?, the Building-up?
> The Force of They?
>
> Lower down on 939:
> "Cyprian had begun to 'relax into his fate' "
> What means this? Nietzsche is one who is famous for the concept of
> accepting--loving, embracing-- one's fate. Amor Fati.
> Nabokov is another, along with some ancient Greek dramatists and
> This bracketed phrase in AtD does not show up except in Pynchon (and one
> unknown writer)'s allusion.
> Does Pynchon even give Nietzsche's concept a laid-back framing? Wiki calls
> Cyprian's response Buddhist.
>
> Has Cyprian gone beyond (society's) good and evil Nietzsche-like. Is that
> where Buddhism lies?
>



-- 
"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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120721/2bcfdd49/attachment.html>