Horst-Maxine-Windust

[David Morris]

I think you should avoid saying "x" is bad in regards to your view of
Pynchon's worldview.  Try instead to say "x" is ... Something else...
 Maybe avoid "is."  Try instead ...  "Smells like?"   The word "bad" stops
all further thought.  That's bad.

:) David Morris

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

> David,
>
> In this instance, I am just quoting You on "bad TV"....
> please look up the meaning of
> "late capitalism" from any of the creators and users of the phrase, which
> TRP uses
> a couple--three times in Bleeding Edge...NOTHING GOOD about it (unless you
> are one
> of the heavy accumulators of capital).
>
> Money and Shit in BE flows directly from it in GR and ultimately
> (probably) Norman O. Brown,
> one of our shared favorites......do you NOT think money, excess amounts
> of, money not worked for
> is one of TRP's 'bad',  i.e. unpositive, i.e. negative, deeply satirized
> aspects of his historical vision?
>
> If you think I am too simplistic, know that I will always believe that TRP
> and other great writers
> will have a vision expressed in their books. The depth, coherence,
> insights of that vision are
> part of what make him or her great....THAT is what I mean when I sometimes
> use "bad" and "good".
>
> We readers have to judge from life and the work where the author's vision
> lies....
>
> In this example, I think I adumbrated, from the text, a decently complex
> character in Horst from
> BLEEDING EDGE....
>
> I still judge that TRP sees him, as we read the pages, as NO, overall, a
> symbolic embodiment
> of positive qualities----Alice started this thread with that word, I
> believe, and by saying he felt Horst was....."positive',
> that TRP's sympathies lie with him....He ain't even close to Embodying
> Cyprian's values, nor even a
> Traverses, nor Yashmeen's nor Maxine's.....who IS largely sympathetic in
> Bleeding Edge (I think).
>
> I want to thank you for steadily challenging me on my oversimplifications.
> It has made me think better, I think,
> and see P's values better---one of which is the richness of
> ambiguity.......
>
> But another is the clarity of his Swiftian excoriation....Vibe ain't too
> complex (but we knew that about many of
> TRP's characters) ....but TRP's vision is...i.e. complex yet visionarily
> "moral"...
>
>
>   On Monday, February 24, 2014 12:47 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>  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 yah
>
>
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