Back to AtD Karmic Adjustment

[Mark Kohut]

I din't know from no stinkin' doges until you posted. Thanks I am still trying
to have something more in my mind regarding this whole bit.
1) TRP, unlike many who love and write about Venice gave us the dark backstory. Why?
 
2) Re penance....from Lot 49, where there is the 'joke' about coming out just under even in life; from
TRP's Watts non-fic piece where he speaks of acts having a necessary blowback [not his term] from Gravity's
Rainbow wherein we get the 'inevitable' return of the repressed, (maybe in AtD the Event the Trespassers are fleeing is related...We unbalanced the human race; into beating the casino in AtD and this quoted piece ---and karmic adjustment as not just a joke? in IV, 
I see this theme, if it is, of a clear balanced world and untroubled acts which, if penance is not served when 
they they are bad acts, builds and hurts.    
 
One might loosely riff that the love you make better be at least equal to the love you take...
 

From: Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org 
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: Back to AtD Karmic Adjustment

On 5/21/2012 3:03 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> Great responses....thanks.
> More to come but I too mean penance figuratively, yet meaningfully. (It
> was only capped 'cause it was first word)
> And Protestant Ethic is a figurative generality, no?
> So, keeping like with like....

Yes, I agree. The sacrament is ceremonial symbolizing sorrow for our 
sins, and sorrow for our sins in turn is metaphorical for the material 
consequences for our actions.

The Protestant Ethic meant that, contrary to tradition, it was OK to 
make money. The Doges' job was seeing to it that the making of money was 
serene (La Serenissima), as peaceful as possible using all necessary 
means regardless of how ruthless. So I can see how the Protestant Ethic 
might be seen to apply to Doge rule.

Is this roughly what you had in mind?

P

>
> *From:* Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
> *To:* pynchon-l at waste.org
> *Sent:* Monday, May 21, 2012 2:47 PM
> *Subject:* Re: Back to AtD Karmic Adjustment
>
> On 5/21/2012 10:36 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>  > p.868 middle...."the doges are gone.....how power can be an
>  > expression of communal will, invisibly exercised in the dark that
>  > surrounds each soul, in which penance must be a necessary term."
>  > Anyone care to riff?
>
>
> Seems to be saying that a ruler in Venice, as long as he lasted, had an
> assigned role and that role included whatever moral trespass was
> necessary to maintain order and prosperity in the Republic. Furthermore,
> it was expected that once the ruler's days in office were over he had
> "to do penance," meaning he had to suffer some of the moral trespass he
> himself had inflicted.
>
> "Communal will" means that doge rule was rule by the consent of the
> governed, which of course means the governed who count. (the rich guys)
>
>
>
>  > 1) Does this explain what the two village guys did to Theign?
>
> I think it may well be a commentary on what happened to Theign, if I'm
> remembering correctly who Theign was.
>
>
>  > 2) Isn't some kind of communal will a largely positive thing in P's
>  > worldview?
>
> The communal will may or may not be in accordance with the Sermon on the
> Mount.
>
>
>  > So, here too?
>  > "Unless one has performed in his life penance equal to what he has
> exacted
>  > from others, there is an imbalance in Nature."
>  > Penance replaces the Protestant Ethic as cultural vision?
>
> I think the sacrament of Penance is being used figuratively.
>
> P
>
>
>
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