M & D Read: Relevant to Gaze?

[Mark Kohut]

Becky writes:
I think it means quite simply that for all of Mason's forlornness,
his "Melancholick look,"  his eager-for-adventure "young-enough Fool"
look,  his "workaday earth toned" skin, and  his "starv'd" look
combined with his "desperate for a shore-cook'd meal" look -  he can't
see it if he looks in a mirror.  He has no awareness of his own
condition.  But the point is that we do.

yes, yes, liking.....Is Pynchon sorta implying Mason has no
self-understanding? No 'inner life' that reflects on itself/himself?
Self-encased in societal, mostly religious? notions---what Marxists
have called 'false consciousness"?

"mirroring, 'mirror neurons' is a psychological term/phrase about the
development of empathy in the young, in all of us. The beginnings of
self-awareness....



On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 9:07 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote:
> I think it means quite simply that for all of Mason's forlornness,  his "Melancholick look,"  his eager-for-adventure "young-enough Fool" look,  his "workaday earth toned" skin, and  his "starv'd" look combined with his "desperate for a shore-cook'd meal" look -  he can't see it if he looks in a mirror.  He has no awareness of his own condition.  But the point is that we do.
>
> The Hindu business earlier in the paragraph is Mrs. De Bosch's opinion of Dixon who is regarded by local society as "Simply Not Suitable."  So Dixon's available but unsuitable and Mason is suitable but unavailable - the dichotomy again.  Still - this  doesn't keep Johanna from trying.
>
> And it's about all that underlying "almost as if"  business the "gazes" are about -  Mason doesn't want Johanna to get any ideas and Johanna doesn't want Mason to think she has any.  Really,  they both do in their own dishonest ways, but they're both just too messed up.  No way is Johanna going to go to bed with Mason - she has her own plans for him -  and Mason wouldn't/couldn't have anyone else.
>
> (Not to get too far ahead but in Chapter 10 Austra is chasing whichever white male - "Sprig" - is easiest to seduce - p. 100.)
>
> Becky
>
>
>> On Feb 8, 2015, at 3:31 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> pp61--62....About Mason coming ashore, etc. : "None of this has
>> appear'd to him in any
>> mirror he has consulted"......
>>
>> What means, this sentence? And, if it means what it seems to--Mason had
>> nowhere to look to understand his experience---, why phrased this way?
>>
>>
>> Or? The Mirror of Mindfulness is a presentation of Tibetan Buddhist
>> teachings on the endless cycle of experience, the four bardos -- life,
>> death, after-death, and ...
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l