Mortality & Mercy in Vienna

Mon Jan 11 04:17:37 CST 2016

I don't know about Ish but I meant 'too much rain' metaphorically.
That is, he loads with allusions and symbols as he said
of the rain in The Small Rain.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 12:51 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> John – thanks for the Tanner!
>
> Too much rain? I don't know about that. The rain is outside, and once Siegel
> is inside only mentioned once more, that it has dwindled to a light mist. I
> cannot see an effort to use rain brillantly like Hemingway or Eliot. Perhaps
> it adds to the claustrophobic setting.
>
> The allusion to Measure for Measure contains more than saying "he's one of
> the greats". Joyce?
>
> 2016-01-11 2:35 GMT+01:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:
>>
>> " too much rain" is a great way to put it. That's the immaturity as a
>> writer.
>> But, just to say: the smart-ass tone comes back in works that work, I
>> would say, don't you think.
>> Smugness too, yes, esp for such a theme.
>> But, just to say, later works do expose the author's attitudes a lot. But
>> here his " attitude"
>> Is pretty damn bad---nihilistic attitudes must contain stuff as big as
>> WW2.
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On Jan 10, 2016, at 8:08 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Very well put!
>>
>> On 11 Jan 2016 11:57 am, "ish mailian" <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> The story suffers from all the weaknesses Pynchon points out in his SL
>>> Introduction to the shorts he re-published in that book. Like the Small
>>> Rain, this story suffers under the cloud of too much rain, rain that is
>>> supposed to do something that Hemingway or Eliot did brilliantly, but young
>>> P doesn't really know what those great authors did with the rain and so he
>>> doesn't even know how how to copy them. It's the smart ass tone that's most
>>> embarrassing and although P admits to his juvenile and proto-fascist
>>> attitudes toward Others, including women, this story, because like The Small
>>> Rain, features a narrative that is essentially the author, and exposes,
>>> without irony or distance the author's attitudes, his smugness and
>>> immaturity, is a good one to omit from the collection.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 7:30 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> It feels like an undergrad story because the engagement with the
>>>> intertexts seems so superficial. "I've read Conrad and Joyce and
>>>> Shakespeare! They're the greats, right?" Later on he does really
>>>> complex and fascinating stuff with allusions and referents but he's
>>>> only just starting down that track, here.
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 11:25 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> > One question is How much of the play and the line matters to the
>>>> > story. Mackin has reminded
>>>> > That TRP has said he only uses as little as he needs; Jochen points
>>>> > right to the major meaning of the line, used when the Duke turns over Vienna
>>>> > to Angelo.   DC is as corrupt as Vienna.
>>>> >
>>>> > MfM plot is different. In detail. Thematically?
>>>> >
>>>> > We 've got to account for the anti-religion, anti-Christian religion
>>>> > in this story. Pervades. Some Interpreters of MfM have spoken of
>>>> > Shakespeare's almost-sacrilegious anti-Christianity. all " Christian" values
>>>> > gone from Vienna. No Christian cultural values ala Eliot.
>>>> >
>>>> > What about sex/love? Rachel doesn't show to the party. But they talk
>>>> > okay. The woman on the Ojibway's lap?
>>>> >
>>>> > Nihilistic terrorism because God, all values, even native ones, gone,
>>>> > dead in the entropic wasteland--that party? Metaphorically speaking--ending
>>>> > in the shooting as complicit Siegel gets away?
>>>> >
>>>> > Sent from my iPad
>>>> >
>>>> >> On Jan 10, 2016, at 5:37 PM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Tanner:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> "The problem, in both works, is how do you - can you, can anyone? -
>>>> >> cure or heal a degenerate and, as it were, 'damned' society?...
>>>> >>
>>>> >> The possibility of any real healing and prophecy recurs throughout
>>>> >> Pynchon. More generally, the problem becomes nothing less than how to
>>>> >> be in the contemporary world, particularly if it is as infernal as
>>>> >> the
>>>> >> Washington party implies. One way is to cultivate disengagement,
>>>> >> emotional immunity; keeping 'cool', to use a term deployed by
>>>> >> Pynchon.
>>>> >> But that, of course, can lead to paralysis and inhumanity. The other
>>>> >> extreme is to want to be a great healer and prophet, but that can
>>>> >> lead
>>>> >> to a different kind of inhumanity - and madness. Pynchon's work is
>>>> >> constantly seeking to discover something in between these two
>>>> >> extremes....
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Irving Siegel is not just an example of a failed healer, a false
>>>> >> prophet. He is both a product and a representative of a society that
>>>> >> has accepted - indeed, eagerly embraced - 'mortality' on an
>>>> >> ever-increasing scale, and has forgotten the 'mercy'."
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I can see why Pynchon might not have wanted to include M&M in Slow
>>>> >> Learner. Casting the native American as a murderous cannibal is lame,
>>>> >> and the "kill 'em all" sentiment underriding the narrative is a
>>>> >> cop-out for the Pynchon who connects one's literary approach to death
>>>> >> as a marker of maturity (and in whose works characters die very, very
>>>> >> infrequently).
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 7:45 AM, 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/?listpynchon-l
>>>> -
>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>
>>>
>
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