Grace again. Misc.

Sat Aug 5 06:48:05 CDT 2017

I  *really* don't care about what religion Pynchon was or is.  I prefer to
read his works without him intruding.  His aversion to interviews indicates
he feels the same way.

David Morris

On Sat, Aug 5, 2017 at 3:47 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Slothrop is, at least, an anti-Puritan.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Aug 4, 2017, at 11:12 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> >
> >          My intention was to bring some background to the word and its
> religious roots and changing use .  It is my sense that P has deep historic
> knowledge of such core words and concepts and this is one of the few areas
> where I have some knowledge and research to draw on  myself because of my
> own history.  As far as Pynchon’s beliefs, I wonder if we know that much.
> It is my memory that he expressed interested in Catholicism as a university
> student, but I have never heard anything to indicate  that this
> interest/faith continued through his life or writing career. Do you have
> something that supports the idea that he remained a Catholic?   He shapes
> some pretty intense satiric fables pointed at Catholicism and Puritanism in
> V and GR.  The chums of chance have Christian overtones.
> >> On Aug 4, 2017, at 8:05 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> All interesting, of course.
> >>
> >> But Pynchon is Catholic, not Protestant, not Calvinist.
> >>
> >> "Puritan" perhaps, as America is/was in his formative years and beyond,
> and before-- as many have written about.  Roth, The Last Puritan or THE
> PURITAN MIND, Larzer Ziff for examples, Ziff who tries to subtilize all the
> paradoxes and their hidden places in America and our minds.
> >>
> >> In Weber, Catholic Spain was a Spirit of Capitalism failure, just misc.
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPad
> >>
> >>> On Aug 4, 2017, at 3:36 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> The earliest appearance in the scriptures of the word has the usage of
> favor: Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This use appears several
> times in Genesis and though some say it means mercy it seems to more
> specifically mean favor.( hence disgraced means shamed/lost from favor) So
> there is a Hebrew word( chen)meaning favor that is used  frequently in the
> Torah and is taken up in the new testament
> >>> by both the gospel writer of the book of John ( the law came by Moses,
> but grace and truth through Jesus)  and by Paul, who dominates theological
> interpretation of the life of Jesus( whom he never met, and appeared to
> know little of his  teachings as presented in the Gospels) .  Paul was
> multi lingual as a preacher to Greeks, Syrians, Romans and was steeped in
> Hebrew, the scriptures,Phariseeism and probably Aramaic. It seems likely
> that he was taking the core concept and word from Genesis and giving it a
> particularly Christian mystical spin. Paul is the source of the concept of
> predetermination of the destiny of the individual to be either saved or
> lost.  That concept was challenged at the time by James, the brother of
> Jesus and leader of the early church in Jerusalem who did not care for
> Paul’s teachings, but again Paul dominates the churches interpretation
> especially among the Protestants. For many protestants grace became the
> dividing line between salvation and damnation with this idea being most
> clearly enunciated by Calvin. The Puritans were Calvinists and P’s personal
> lineage though with an heretical streak..
> >>>
> >>> I agree with David Morris that despite this weighty background,
> Pynchon plays with the linguistic nuances that the word( grace of a dancer,
> graceful exit, graciuos host)  has acquired including letting  the Puritan
> heritage play out its role among the characters he creates. One must be
> careful to not overly connect the language of a pyncho character with his
> own beliefs or language.
> >>>
> >>> Luther and Calvin derive their concept of grace, Luther as a function
> of loving parental abundance and the" finished work of Christ “ and Calvin
> more mechanistically as a kind of prearranged divine mathematics, from Paul.
> >>>
> >>> I spent a lot of years with the Bible and came away with some
> knowledge but little love for its sway in human affairs or my own life. The
> Pauine concept of grace and its theological explication seems diseased to
> me, a way of giving up agency and justifying powerful bullies. I personally
> use the word only when it is clear I am talking about elegant flow in art
> or physical movement. That human experience of the transcendent includes
> mercy and the renewal that mercy brings seems natural and does not  require
> a lot of theological pyrotechnics.  We don’t need to spend our lives going
> back and forth on the same bus going one way then the other. Just get off
> the bus and live.
> >>>
> >>> I see Pynchon as a humane satirist, a chronicler of alternative
> history from an outsider perspective, and wildly liberated spinner of 3
> dimensional stories that include mythos, conspracy theory,  colorful but
> credible fiction, and historic events in fairly equal measure.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On Jul 29, 2017, at 3:28 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> You are the native speaker, Mark, but I would say it's bullshit if
> you don't provide context. What kind of grace? You have disgrace, you have
> clumsiness, I'm sure you have more opposites of grace.
> >>>>
> >>>> 2017-07-29 21:11 GMT+02:00 Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com>:
> >>>> I suggest "trump"
> >>>> From: Mark Kohut
> >>>> Sent: ‎7/‎29/‎2017 20:06
> >>>> To: pynchon -l
> >>>> Subject: Grace again. Misc.
> >>>>
> >>>> Gracelessness is an absence of grace, but the English language lacks
> a word for the opposite of grace.--Cass Sunstein, very recent essay.
> >>>
> >>> -
> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >> -
> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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