Mortality & Mercy in Vienna

[Mark Kohut]

As this bloviator has to respond. I AM TOO. it is a kind of
duck-rabbit response---or Iceland Spar-like---to feel
this  possible Negative Empathy vibe from trying to understand P....

As I wrote, feeling all the symbols and stuff in a buried way I yet
felt this reading made me feel the historyness
of it more---with his brilliant use of the excluded middle even thru
that ending in a way. That ending is carefully not
either-or.

I loved it again and almost more.



On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 12:50 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the pithy comments on COL49, Mark. I'm in the camp that thinks it's among Pynchon's best. Just because of its short length, it's probably over-represented on syllabi (no proof of this, just a hunch) and it's a less-intimidating gateway to Pynchon. Maybe that's part of the reason Pynchon felt it was a failure.
>
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>Sent: Jan 11, 2016 9:14 AM
>>To: ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>>Cc: "Pynchon-l at waste.org" <Pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>Subject: Re: Mortality & Mercy in Vienna
>>
>>Yes, 'making things literary' all over the f*ing pages is its major
>>fault, I agree. Symbolism and allusions out the wazoo squeezed
>>almost breathlessly into a short story. My god, the eucharist! Not
>>just "cool' but a "Lupesco cool'. Windigo psychosis. and clichés--a
>>Modigliani neck, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed--he musta winced in 84.
>>Overly patterned might be the lit crit generalization.
>>
>>Now here is where I am going to get more interesting for you all to
>>argue with. Someone once said of a writer, maybe Shakespeare, that
>>amidst his greatest density of meanings, he also let his plays
>>'breathe'. Minor characters as alive as you or me, so to speak, all we
>>learn somehow thematically relevant but not felt that way at first. Or
>>mixing prose and poetry so artfully, or the in-between scenes--I love
>>the Henrys and some comedies for this. In obviously dramatically
>>heightened works---is Shakespeare an hysterical realist?; he sure
>>ain't no social realist, as real as he can be--he allowed them to
>>breathe, so to speak. This matters for the illusion of reality, was
>>argued.
>>
>>(early P.S. so to speak: Bloom notes that Measure for Measure and
>>Macbeth are the two plays he loves for their fullest intensities.
>>Others, even Lear, the rich Midsummer Night, "breathe" more in the
>>above respect)
>>
>>In prose fiction, the life around the Intensities matters, most seem
>>to say. Because we feel it as we read. The setting up of effects, of
>>climaxes. Backstories and unpredictable elements of character and plot
>>that add some kind of psychic depth (at least).
>>
>>I remember reading on and on in a long Dreiser story once, sure that
>>it dragged until the cumulative effect (of emotional poverty) hit.
>>And a Sebald novel hit me like a blow once with a sense of what has been lost.
>>
>>Jump cut: Why does TRP still think The Crying of Lot 49 fails? I
>>"forgot all I had learned" about writing short stories. I have just
>>read it again, I embrace it wholeheartedly (but as Kerry says in the
>>Companion, it can be more, not less puzzling, upon each rereading. The
>>last reading, here on the Plist, I felt we--i--had gotten to a very
>>fine reading, "my' adjusted reading then. Now, this reading, not so
>>same old same old me.
>>
>>But, here's a notion I have had about Crying for awhile so did
>>feel--you want to talk projection, OK?--this reading as I read
>>straight through (with, of course, a lot of internalized knowledge and
>>opinion). It is loaded with symbolism; it can hit one, as it did my
>>first baffled reading, as a game of Clue so to speak. Yes, the reality
>>and meaning of Tristero and The Courier's Tragedy text for Oedipa is
>>overt and the major part of the first bafflement but I don't mean
>>that. Once you accept that, you still have all the curious things that
>>happen. All the scenes full of 'clues' to sort out AND all of the
>>curious things that are on the page between all the scenes. From the
>>TV and the expectant revelation and the early tower allusions and on
>>and on. All that density of allusion that scholars and all of us have
>>been getting off on all these years. One might say, per the above,
>>that the story hardly "breathes".
>>
>>I tentatively off this as why TRP might no longer like the story as we
>>all do. Please discuss.
>>With GR, although that book is really INTENSE and full of allusions,
>>and overarching (groan) symbols, from Pirates' banana breakfast on, it
>>also "breathes". He needed room to write at his best is what The
>>Crying of Lot 49 shows.
>>
>>This reading of Lot 49 made me feel, did build up magnificently to,
>>the theme of historical uncertainty, historical possibility, so to
>>call it. That perfect waiting at the end after we have been made to
>>feel that the old American society ways had this underflow working all
>>along.  The US postal unity was gone. (terrif words on what little is
>>now communicated by mail in Lot 49, which I will look up for anyone
>>who wants reminded) In What all say the social narrowness of postwar
>>America in the fifties was like. For me, Phoenix walking
>>back-and-forth in the master's house in The Master as well as that job
>>he flees from). And more standard histories and works and presented in
>>Lot 49 as Oedipa's buried Young Republican suburban girl life.
>> I watched Don Siegel's movie of that parable of the fifties, The
>>Invasion of the Body Snatchers last eve, wherein full humanity is
>>being lost. The narrowing of feeling and thinking and everything that
>>matters. So fine.
>>I seemed to notice for the first time that the end of the Holy Roman
>>Empire is in the Lot 49 story!
>>
>>The end of Lot 49 is the revelation of possible opening out of
>>society, of life in that society.
>>Anyway, so it unfolds today for me.
>>
>>
>>
>>On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 5:39 AM, 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>-
>>Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l