On "Mindless Pleasures",

[Mark Kohut]

"O happy dagger, / This is they sheath; there rust and let me die"---Juliet...
The Latin for sheath is vagina. 
 
The more I think on it, the more I think, yes, as Morris wrote,  Slothrop's ego dies; Blicero dies in ecstasy....Pynchon's 'ambiguous' on both edges of meanings with first title? His wont. 
 
 
 

From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> 
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2013 9:18 AM
Subject: Re: On "Mindless Pleasures",



In a book on Shakespeare by A.S. Nuttall, I find this summary of a concept we have explored
in discussing Pynchon in GR. Perhaps it is the way I can finally see Morris's point, if it is (part of) Morris's 
point? ....anyway, another possible slant on that alternate title?
 
"the internal character of ecstasy seems to oscillate between maximum intensity of experience and an extinction
of experience. One feels as one has never felt before and at the same time the experiencing mind is blotted out,
one drops into nothingness. That is why "die' became a slang word for "orgasm". [He sez.] 
 
[He adds: " The theme [of love "replacing" sexual  ecstasy] will grow under Shakespeare's hand as he moves from Love's Labour Lost
to Romeo & Juliet]

From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> 
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 4:50 PM
Subject: Re: On "Mindless Pleasures",



Slothrup becomes the Buddha before disappearing. 

"Mindless" may be taken to mean something other than a contrast to "mindfulness."  I don't know if that term was even used back then.  "Be here now" was common, but "mindfulness?"

Buddhist meditation involves stilling the frantic mind (sometimes called the Monkey Mind) by focusing on what might be called mindless: eg.  the sensation of breathing to the exclusion of all narration.  The goal being to find a place within, still & quiet, from which to let chaos of "thinking" become external, something to observe w/o letting it control one's central being.  "Just Being" as opposed to Thinking.

"Mindless" back then might actually mean what is now called (ubiquitously) "Mindfulness."

David Morris

On Friday, May 10, 2013, Mark Kohut wrote:

the working title of GR, as we know. Is there anything known,
>or have we bloviated yet on that possible title, used all the way
>through submitted manuscript copies to paperback houses
>to read and bid for paperback rights?
>
>What would be the mindless pleasures in GR? All of them? 
>Everything in it? 
>
>And, this occurred to me last evening, prompting this post: maybe
>this title was a working contrast to the concept of Mindfulness in
>Buddhist thought? 
>
>Anyone, anyone, Bueller? Bueller?
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20130512/beaa36b2/attachment.html>