M & D Duck Read: still thinking on Mason.

[Mark Kohut]

Disagreement is virtually unanimous, not the best sign. So I've reduced
not illuminated a layer? Or it might half-fit but abstractly, hardly intended by
TRP, not even deep background within his historical vision?

Okay. Too abstract, very likely: one might say it 'fits' Moby Dick as
well or better.
A level of 'interpretation' imposed from on high, not there in the
text. OR, if true
enough about the world, might be true enough about a novel about that world.

Regarding that he, they , are practical, pragmatic, as is also said,
yes, that is in the nature of
their professional skills, and doesn't argue against other meanings in
their being
on the page, in fact supports the Protestant Ethic notions.

Moving on,



On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 3:38 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
<lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>
> On 08.02.2015 00:58, Mark Kohut wrote:
>
>> I say one major level that Pynchon lays down is that Mason IS
>> a Puritan, a Protestant caught in Protestant Religion deeply...he
>> is so Puritanical he is half in love with Death, all in love with
>> a 2-year dead woman; Why is this emphasized so much by Pynchon?
>> Because Protestantism in the Spirit of Capitalism is a death wish.
>>
>
> This interpretation does not convince me at all. Mason's love for Rebekah
> and the fact that she's dead are not pictured by Pynchon in order to verify
> the Weber thesis in Freudian disguise.
>
>
>
>>    Puritans don't fuck---except for baby-making;
>> Puritans are Fundamentalists, THAT deep tradition; America's
>> Puritanism descends from them.....
>>
>> And THAT is one major thematic meaning of Mason & Dixon, I say...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 6:34 PM, alice malice<alicewmalice at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Not Puritan but typical of his sect at the time, Academic and
>>> Pragmatic. Though Mason exhibits what was considered a dangerous
>>> enthusiasm, he tempers it, though it haunts him, causing him, at times
>>> to Quake. So our boys are entwined, both Pragmatic Mystics, one by
>>> choice, that is Dixon, the other by haunt and wind and history.
>>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 6:21 AM, Monte Davis<montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Is "Puritanism" the word you want?
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 6:16 AM, Mark Kohut<mark.kohut at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Overdetermined, that Freudian concept. Why does Pynchon stress Mason's
>>>>> grief so hard? Why is his Puritanism as defining repeated? Does over
>>>>> determinism apply?,
>>>>> I think it might....so, taking my cue from TRP on tendril, I
>>>>> looked it up to see if I understood it and learned this,
>>>>> over determinedly as well, along with Freud's notion.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The New Critic I. A. Richards used the idea of overdetermination in
>>>>> order to explain the importance of ambiguity in rhetoric, the
>>>>> philosophy of language, and literary criticism.
>>>>> -
>>>>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l /http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l