M & D Duck Read: still thinking on Mason.

[alice malice]

 Mason is a Verger, and his duties, like the Sexton's may include the
management of the graveyard, but the conflict that P is emphasizing
here is between Imagination & Insanity and Reason & Science.

Very big topic of the day.



Enlightenment Crossings: Pre- And Post-Modern Discourses :
Anthropological Hardcover – September, 1991
by G. S. Rousseau

On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:42 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> Eliade's understanding of religion centers on his concept of
> hierophany (manifestation of the Sacred)--a concept that includes, but
> is not limited to, the older and more restrictive concept of theophany
> (manifestation of a god).[87] From the perspective of religious
> thought, Eliade argues, hierophanies give structure and orientation to
> the world, establishing a sacred order. The "profane" space of
> nonreligious experience can only be divided up geometrically: it has
> no "qualitative differentiation and, hence, no orientation [is] given
> by virtue of its inherent structure".[88] Thus, profane space gives
> man no pattern for his behavior.
>
> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 7:54 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Praxis Conference @PraxisHouston
>> A Catholic, a Pentecostal, and an Anglican walk into a bar....
>>
>> It has occurred to me that Pynchon does not end the joke in M & D because
>> it hasn't ended yet....
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 6:58 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> 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.
>>>
>>>   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