Mortality & Mercy in Vienna

[Mark Kohut]

In the Lot 49 Companion, Tanner is quoted in the intro of it
as saying the text's meaning---"exists between the literal and the metaphoric".

I offer this about the GR Bianca dream or not sequence and wonder if
it can apply to M & M, but I can't see that (except in the normal way that it
is fiction)



On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 3:45 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> yes, very worryingly claustrophobic.
>
> I have been trying to write something that says other than your other
> critical voice. My mind stops there, except to think it can't mean
> that, can it? I might suggest it shows the nihilism of said
> liberalism, and of native American revenge (justice) as well?
> The complicity of them, of the native and the liberal bureaucrat.
>
> I want to reread Measure for Measure before saying more. It IS
> claustrophobic and even the resolution contains bad shit.
>
> I have both Tanner books but still in boxes since recent move.
>
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 1:27 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Significantly, Tony Tanner begins his preface for Measure for Measure with
>> the sentence: "This is a worryingly claustrophobic play." Is that not true
>> for Pynchon's short story as well? He then muses about the word
>> "circummured" that Shakespeare invented for this play and never used again.
>>
>> Perhaps somebody who reads this post has Tanner's book about Pynchon at
>> hand: Apparently he deals on the pages 26-29 with M&M in Vienna.
>>
>> Meanwhile here's another critical voice:
>>
>> "Any political critique of Pynchon should begin there: the shrugging off of
>> murder. ... The poignancy of 'Mortality and mercy in Vienna' is revealed in
>> that shrug, which is the real centre to the story. It indexes perfectly an
>> inability and unwillingness to intervene in a world in which mercy and
>> mortality appear inseparable. and terrorism a kind of unfathomable justice.
>> The shrug shows up the fine limits of Pynchon's story at the same time as
>> revealing the moment (so often repeated in recent American history) when
>> America's confused liberalism emerges as scandalously self-conscious
>> indifference."
>>
>> Terrorism a kind of unfathomable justice, indeed.
>>
>> 2016-01-09 9:22 GMT+01:00 Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>:
>>>
>>> You said that now at lest twice, David. The high schooler who can put out
>>> sth like Mortality and Mercy would have a bright future as a writer, I
>>> think. And I don't think it has much morality. I think it's better than
>>> Entropy, that one is really charged with symbols. You all know the scene
>>> where the parting Duke delegates his power to Angelo with those words, it's
>>> the first. And Siegel is no hypocrite – what he does, given the choice
>>> between M&M, is quite cool, don't you think.
>>>
>>> What I thought after Slow Learner came out: that P didn't republish that
>>> short story because he didn't like to see that name again, associated with
>>> his own, the name of that asshole who broke the silence about him.
>>>
>>> 2016-01-09 2:00 GMT+01:00 David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>> Too much morality for my taste, and so clunky to boot!  This feels like
>>>> it was written by a high schooler.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Friday, January 8, 2016, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> The more I 'analyze' this story, the more problematic it is to me.
>>>>> Some over the top
>>>>> symbols and allusions and symbolic motivation I don't think I get.....
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, the motivation does not seem 'earned', right?....but wha is it?
>>>>>
>>>>> Siegel is Mercy?....the Ojibway is Mortality? .......I cannot
>>>>> think the influence of the play into this story.......so different..
>>>>> ---- Vienna is absolutely corrupt, known.......and I guess DC is
>>>>> supposed to be too.....
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 3:11 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> > http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/vienna.html
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Starts in rain. (see Small Rain and P on that symbolism borrowed from
>>>>> > Hem)
>>>>> >
>>>>> > a party. like Entropy.
>>>>> > music   like Entropy
>>>>> >
>>>>> > girl named Rachel. Like V. Who doesn't show.(absent)
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Zeit [Time] as in V. a doctor here.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > P-like crazy names.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > very overt Catholicism imagery. and a mother who refutes it at 19.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > what else?
>>>>> -
>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>>
>>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l