Mortality & Mercy in Vienna

[ish mailian]

But I agree with those that read the story as one that a high school writer
would win praise and prizes for. It would excite some creative writing
teachers at college too, impress a few coeds even.  I bet Farina dug it
too.
On Monday, January 11, 2016, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> I do know about it ;-)
> Young P is trying to make things literary by alluding to FWA and the
> Wasteland, here, and in The Small Rain, and is, though he obviously doesn't
> know it, as with his use of Shakespeare, working with symbolisms, of death,
> that, as he tells us in the SL Introduction, he doesn't have a mature
> apprehension of.
>
> On Monday, January 11, 2016, 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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