Horst-Maxine-Windust

[David Morris]

Mark,

Whenever you say that something (TV, late capitalism, etc.) in TRP's novels
are "bad," and some other thing "good," you suck all depth away from
understanding the depths of the dynamics being portrayed.  You don't seem
to be able to get beyond these black lines & white spaces of a coloring
book.  Don't be so eager for simplicities.

David Morris

On Monday, February 24, 2014, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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.
>
>
>
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