The Small Rain redux, part 2

Tue Jan 26 09:29:36 CST 2016

nice good stuff here I say, Ish.....will read again.....

I agree that Little Buttercup is not well drawn and at the end seen
through Levine's eyes (therefore I see projection, probably, and
unreliability
from Levine)...which I would say might be 'proved' by her 'whimpering'.
To me, am I a sentimentalist here, a young woman whimpering would show
most likely more caring (at least for the encounter, for the possibility of
real
connection, than Levine shows and has). Could her whimpering be a suggestion
that she sees Levine's lack of caring (as he stands there in T--shirt
waiting)?
No real tenderness with her, touching her, not even a bit of impatient
passion to help
undress or undress her.

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 10:07 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

> 45-46   Picnic plays analyst with Nathan after he notices the "old
> Sgt. Bilko type soldier we used to know and love" has changed, "the
> past beginning to close in" or perhaps Nathan is "undergoing an
> intellectual crisis", that Levine shrugs off as,  all the time he's
> been developing (irony) and caring (irony) for this hear beer belly
> (in Hemingway's FWA the men have distended bellies too, though not
> from beer but from death that swells them out, as if pregnant with it
> as they march through the rain that causes cholera, and is generally a
> symbol of death, end especially death of procreation and fertility),
> when "something like those stiffs comes along and throws it out of
> kilter" (more irony as kilter or kelter is a healthy or good
> condition).
>
> Here, as in Lowlands, and in the more developed stories (Doctors
> Hilarious and Slothrop etc...) the "analyst" is a setup for irony and
> puns.
>
> They decide to "talk about something else" and then the girls fall in
> their laps, and the sizing up exchange, tomorrow night we'll see...
> they break into boys grab-ass fighting and stagger home.
>
> Young Pynchon does a fine job with the dialogue here. And she is
> wonderful. The bad ear thing is not that bad and not as significant,
> as P suggests in the SL Introduction to the tale, It doesn't evolve
> from the accents, but the story suffers in the characterization of
> Buttercup in the final two pages as does the rest of the story. She is
> very well drawn until the plowboy stuff and the pile of allusions and
> the whimpering.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 7:28 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think my remark that they have not yet " internalized mortality",
> > are not 'serious' about it (as TRP says is the attitude toward death
> > in good fiction, in characters in fiction) sez the same as you say.
> >
> > I simply added the possible interpretation that Levine's "cool' without
> > caring is part of a lack of seriousness about death....when internalized
> > maturely, we care. As he sees the little Buttercup, she isn't yet there
> > either. Would like to know your judgment of Levine's characterization
> > of her?....reliable or unreliable judgment? ....I know my belief here.
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 7:13 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Slow Learners about mortality? Are they somehow sheltered from death?
> >> Are they too self absorbed, solipsistic, immature to care, to
> >> consider, to contemplate death? I doubt it. The setting and the
> >> circumstances force death into their lives. If, surrounded with the
> >> corpses of victims of an act of God they somehow don't get, not yet,
> >> that they too are mortal and will die, something is not working in
> >> their young hearts and minds. No, they know death. But, as P goes on
> >> to say, they avoid it, as they avoid work, tough decisions, domestic
> >> maturity,  and/or more dangerously they make narratives that mix death
> >> with desire, a desire that is repressed and returns in awkward
> >> allusions and repressed descriptions that, in ball caps and cigars,
> >> pun them on the road to mindless pleasure.
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 4:31 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> > is Levine's "problem" that, as P sez in the intro,
> >> > these folks don't yet get, have not internalized that they
> >> > are mortal---hence the sleeping late, sophomoric jokes,
> >> > and Levine gets the scene where we get to see death,
> >> > so he's getting there but in the encounter he is all cool
> >> > with no caring (yet)..in Pynchon's phrase....so when he
> >> > quips about sex and death, It IS still as bad as a
> >> > magazine piece.
> >> > When internalizing death maturely, caring develops?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 6:03 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> >> > wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> " there was in her eyes something that might have been a dismayed
> >> >> and delayed acknowledgment that what was hazarding this particular
> >> >> plowboy was deeper than any problem of seasonal change or doubtful
> >> >> fertility,
> >> >> Precisely as he had recognized earlier that her capacity to give
> >> >> involved
> >> >> nothing over or above the list of enumerated wares....[they are
> >> >> enumerated
> >> >> in one
> >> >> of TRP's first but short lists]...and THEREFORE [my caps] he assumed
> >> >> toward her
> >> >> that same nonchalant compassion which he felt for the heroines of sex
> >> >> novels, or
> >> >> for the burned-out but impotent good guy rancher in a western. He let
> >> >> her
> >> >> undress
> >> >> apart from him, until, standing there ion nothing but T-shirt and
> >> >> baseball
> >> >> cap, puffing placidly
> >> >> on the stogie he heard her from the mattress, whimpering." p. 50 SL
> >> >>
> >> >> Discuss. if you want. One tack: reliable or unreliable narrator here?
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> "....they lay not touching. "In the midst of great death, " Levine
> >> >> said,
> >> >> 'the little death".
> >> >> And later, "Ha. It sounds like a caption in LIFE.In the midst of
> LIFE.
> >> >> We
> >> >> are in death. Oh god'.
> >> >>
> >> >> Discuss in regard to narrator's problem. Maybe.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> Tangential. Joseph Heller once said his novel Something Happened was
> >> >> about
> >> >> time, a friend
> >> >> told me. I looked up the interview. It was about TIME, he said,
> working
> >> >> there.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> -
> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >
> >
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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