Mortality & Mercy in Vienna

[Mark Kohut]

I, too much a fanboy, actually "like" M & M too, although I did NOT
read it until much, much later. I did not go after reading it before
SLOW LEARNER since I thought then, if HE didn't even include it and
diss it....I am just trying to be a good critic with it not a fanboy.

I only became obsessive about TRP since AtD and time.

Your and Laura's thanks and remarks will keep me going...remember, if
you get too many emails from me just delete and I'll surely repeat
sometime. Smile.

But I am exercising hard for the GR Beyond Read.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 1:25 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, Mark, thanks for your enlightening remarks on Pynchon's shortest novel
> which is one of my favorites, too.
>
> And the reason that makes me a defender of M&M is probably that of all
> stories it was that which opened my eyes to P. when I read it in the 70s.
> Some time before a German author translated it as Sterblichkeit und Erbarmen
> in Wien (and with his subtitle: "with a little help from my friends" iirc).
>
>
>
> 2016-01-11 18:50 GMT+01:00 <kelber at mindspring.com>:
>>
>> 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/?listpynchon-l
>
>
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