Horst-Maxine-Windust

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, Ice resembles Vibe. I just threw him in to pile up the ways making money are seen
in TRP's work. In this book of "late capitalism", money is deep shit, is THE major problem,
it gets one man killed (at least)....
 
Besides what else you wrote about Horst's character, thanks for continuing to make my case; Maxine--a reliable narrator in her judgment
of Horst, it would seem...wrote about his silo-like emotional inexpressiveness...(I ask, is that a 'good'
or even neutral quality in this book?, in TRP's vision)
 
Adultery is a transgression, a betrayal of trust, against the spouse, without agreement. He hurt Maxine enough for her to divorce him. 
 
He makes money. Legally, with a skill. He's "nice" and interacts with his kids good-heartedly. Does he help Maxine with them in any real way, even just financially?   
 
He is not very sympathetic although, as the clichés go...."even So-and-So loved kids and dogs".....
 
I see him as a representative selfish American....makes money, is not in touch with his emotions except for the sexual ones, it seems...and his fatherly and civilized 'niceness'............he watches bad TV.....like most of America, especially (?) the men....
 
He is America, threatened by cutthroat web criminals who can bring down even his financial empire....bet he lost money in the Crash (of 2008).
 
Mark
 
 
 



On Sunday, February 23, 2014 5:24 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
  

If anyone in this novel resembles Vibe, it is Ice, not Horst. Horst cheats on his wife. Infidelity is not a crime in NYC. She's no Mother Maxina. The family is, fairly typical of the UWS,  it functions in a dysfunctional world. That Horst, according to Maxine, once put his hands around her throat and choked her, and that he still loses it over trivial shit like the missing Chunky Monkey ice cream, is all I can find in the novel to make him less than Pynchon's most sympathetic characters. Dixon, for example, is far from perfect. His abuse of the females is not excused by his whipping of the slave driver. Slothrop's, Zoyd, the list goes on. Horst is a good father, a decent guy. And, again, his skill, luck, independence, and great fortune, are matched against he neo liberals, neo techs, the brave new world that has taken his trade, his job. So, again, he is more like the author than Max, who is, subjected to the harshest satire. She bends and takes
 Windust through her torn hoes. Like Frenesi on her knees. Horst is on a different vibe. 
On Sunday, February 23, 2014, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

Alice, with all due respect,  I can withdraw my two lines supposedly summing up my view of Wall Street and the argument ( within the fiction) still stands.....my 'associative', descriptive leap " to the 1%"---simple fact re Horst; drop the Occupy resonances if you want, ....and the niceness of Wall Streeters is just a tail. " Niceness was to pickup on Morris's good-heartedness and simply to  
>Say many of the very rich can be very " nice"....
>
>
>I brought out some textual NotNicenesses earlier. 
>
>Sent from my iPad
>
>On Feb 23, 2014, at 2:25 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>Mark, 
>>
>>With all due respect,your view of "wall street" is superficial and distorted and so the conclusions you draw are ridiculous.  
>> 
>>
>>
>>
>>On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>Yes, Horst makes money.....a 'wonderful' quality in all of TRP's fiction....one of his deep authorial thematic identifications. THIS IS SARCASM.  
>>> 
>>>Rich Horst cheated on Maxine. Rich Horst seems to have left Maxine with little (but the 'house") as they say.
>>> 
>>>Horst can seem to sense where the money will be....like Jay Gould? Or a Vibe? 
>>> 
>>>Watching bad TV is TRP's way of saying he is his culture, mindless, with an "inhuman"---[in the sense his skill
>>>happens without much interaction with human beings...he doesn't make anything, create anything--even a 'team"] 
>>>skill for getting rich. He is the 1%, with an overt "niceness"---why shouldn't he be? He is Wall Street. 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On Sunday, February 23, 2014 12:44 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>  
>>>He is a very sympathetic character in BE.  He seems almost pure hearted.  He watches bad TV, but makes tons of dough. What reader wouldn't want to be in his shoes? Would that we could be so lucky.
>>>
>>>On Saturday, February 22, 2014, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>What? Don't like Horst? Why? He has money? He trades commodities? Nothing wrong with his job, right? He's an independent craftsman.  He's good. Real good. Nothing wrong with that. What? He seems like a good guy. There is that temper. That's not good. He gets violent with Maxine. But other than that, the novel pits him against the computer and the new kids on the block, and he gains our approval. Right. 
>>>>
>>>>On Saturday, February 22, 2014, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Wrong.
>>>>>
>>>>>Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>
>>>>>On Feb 22, 2014, at 9:53 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Horst does not adopt the new technologies that have all but buggy-whipped the traders in Chicago and in NYC by the time he moves to NYC.  He takes a sublet in the tower not because he has finally given in to computer trading but because he wants to keep at his old craft trade as long as possible. He is, as he says, a dinosaur. As he says, the computer trading has taken over and he can do his job anywhere now, but he wants to trade the old way. Though the trading pits in the building of Lower Manhattan are on the lover floors, Horst takes a sublet at the top. These floors have been relegated to the old world traders, guys and gals who trade bonds and act as dealers for UST Securities, so Cantor Fitzgerald the Firm hardest hit on September the 11th. The novel clearly sides with Horst and his craft. His magic, his luck and fortune, not unlike the author's own, is set against, not entangled in the computer traded world that allies itself with the
 neo-liberalism of Windust.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> 
>>>
>>> 
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