M & D from Joseph's post

[Joseph Tracy]

I'm going to rewrite this response to Mark's post.   I felt the same juxtaposing of opposites that was his response but with a twist. Sensuality does not automatically  imply abuse (unless you are a gnostic or NT literalist) , but here sensuality is given free reign in a direct relation to slavery. Mason imagines similar uses of slaves. Dixon who sees the non-whites as fellows is repulsed by the fantasy, Joanna indulges the fantasy and Cornelius walks away with a hard-on.  The trouble implicit in all this is a division of the soul  because of the desire to hang onto both the Bible  and the sensual power games. Both the authority of the Bible and slavery are necessitated by this Voc enterprise. 
> The Bible in callvinist interp gives them the status of chosen, graced, saved, operating under the leaders appointed by God, and the Bible justifies their violent and humiliating relation to those perceived as heathen, lost,  those who may be redeemed only in subservience to divine order from the fairest to the darkest.
As a result of this division, one reality or the other will dry and whither. ( no one can serve 2 masters)

> OK, well probably time to move on to the next chapter. 
On Feb 13, 2015, at 2:10 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> yes, that impossible tension. But here sensuality is connected to slavery, and that abuse is not implicit in the sensuality itself. Here it is a division in the soul because of the desire to hang onto both the Bible and the power/sensuality  provided by the Voc. The Bible in callvinist interp giving them the status of chosen, graced, saved and justifying their relation to those perceived as heathen, lost,  those who may be redeemed only in subservience to divine order from the fairest to the darkest.
>  

> On Feb 13, 2015, at 6:14 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
> 
>> "One metaphor of this juxtaposition that I found telling was the girls
>> oiling Joanna's skin so that it won't be as the dry pages of the
>> Bible."
>> 
>> I also saw this as a metaphor for the sensual, the paganish embrace of
>> the body vs. the way the Bible has created repression from its pages.
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> 
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list

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