Grace?

[Mark Kohut]

Another way to frame this: as so many on the Plist are always saying---I
won't name names so as
not to overlook anyone--Pynchon's 'ultimate', or metaphysical or religious
or even 'enlarged spiritual' beliefs
can not be determined with finality from his texts.

Grace is a word that shows that.

On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 2:04 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thomas and Ish and Laura,
>
> I think it is also undramatically ANTI-theological at one and the same
> time. He subverts the whole history of the meaning of grace at the same
> time.
>
> Is there ANY other "novelist of ideas" who, everywhere, embeds his
> 'ambiguous ideas' so like
> Empson's types of all over the text? It is astonishing to me, say, in
> context
> of your recent posts, all associations seem relevant enough, unfolding the
> word Grace
> like an opening flower,
>
> YET: "They will put on smoked goggles for the glory of what is coming to
> part the sky. They fly toward grace." (1085)
>
> this line to me also must allude to the opening of GR --AS WELL..'glory'
> now applied to the screaming Rocket and,
> of course, Grace being (also) Death. Satiric, almost parodic, almost
> lyrically* sarcastic --*180* meanings as well
>
> He means both interpretations at once, i suggest. Such a type of
> intellectual ambiguity that also overcomes the binary--an oeuvre-length
> theme.
>
> Shakespeare could do it, as could a few other poets per Empson. But as a
> novelist of ideas, priceless.
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 1:34 PM, Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Must grace be theological? Maybe it's more a frame of reference. There
>> are moments we all have where we see things freshly. Lying on the grass,
>> when the trees rustle, just as a cloud partially obscures the sun.
>> Focussing on the dust motes illuminated by a ray of light in a musty room.
>> Pausing, almost without realizing it, over the odd curvature of the pepper
>> one's about to slice into. Responding to the moments, the thing-ness,
>> unmediated by any thoughts or knowledge of theology or philosophy or any
>> lore at all. To commune with the trees or the dust motes or the pepper on
>> that elemental level is to (momentarily) become a child of nature. No
>> knowledge, no morality, no mediating thoughts at all. As soon as you name
>> it, it's gone.
>>
>> To view the world from that frame of reference for an extended period
>> might put one at peace. But it would be terrifyingly lonely. More than Lew
>> can bear. For Gottfried, that point at the top of the parabola -- where the
>> knife cutting the apple is just a knife cutting an apple, where there's a
>> complete absence of knowledge or morality -- is a comfort. For the Chums,
>> it's a safe haven from the impending horrors. Don't we all attempt to
>> retreat to that frame of reference - the cold, amoral universe, where
>> things just are what they are - when confronted with the insanities of the
>> day? I know I do.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 7:54 AM, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thomas,
>>>
>>> Theological concepts indeed. As far as I can tell, the key figure here
>>> is Descartes, who studied with Jesuits, thus  Aristotle/Thomas and
>>> then applied his Subjective *I*  to Thomas's defense of God's
>>> existence, not to deny it, but, as his Meditations  argue, to shift
>>> the proof of existence from God's Nature/Action to Man's thinking.
>>>
>>> As far as I can tell, P does not use Grace or any other concept  to
>>> make of Man a thinker who in the act of thought has an equivalency of
>>> knowledge of the essences, that is to say, humans are not, even with
>>> the shift to Descartes, privy to the knowledge of Thomas's God.
>>>
>>> As far as what we or the Chums fly toward? Well, Grace, of course.
>>> Something we move toward by God and God alone, something we may want
>>> to know by can not. And since we can not know it, how can we know we
>>> want it? Because it is God's will. or will be when He elects us. Of
>>> course, this is why Pynchon finds the Preterit so compelling.
>>>
>>> >
>>> > In theological/philosophical terms, seeing things as they are means
>>> > understanding things in their quiddity or "whatness", perceiving their
>>> > essence and not their outward appearance. We know, from his essay on
>>> Sloth,
>>> > that Pynchon is familiar with Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (and
>>> Aquinas
>>> > turns up in his writings as early as "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna").
>>> >
>>> > Cf.:
>>> >
>>> > "But the angelic and the Divine intellect, like all incorruptible
>>> things,
>>> > have their perfection at once from the beginning. Hence the angelic
>>> and the
>>> > Divine intellect have the entire knowledge of a thing at once and
>>> perfectly;
>>> > and hence also in knowing the quiddity of a thing they know at once
>>> whatever
>>> > we can know by composition, division, and reasoning. Therefore the
>>> human
>>> > intellect knows by composition, division and reasoning. But the Divine
>>> > intellect and the angelic intellect know, indeed, composition,
>>> division, and
>>> > reasoning, not by the process itself, but by understanding the simple
>>> > essence."
>>> >
>>> > Summa Theologica, I, Question 85, Article 5
>>> >
>>> > Against this background, seeing things in their quiddity would mean to
>>> see
>>> > things like God or angels do, having "the entire knowledge of a thing
>>> at
>>> > once and perfectly". Is this not the state of mind (or grace) that
>>> befalls
>>> > Lew and that Gottfried aspires to?
>>> >
>>> > We don't know what "flying toward grace" means for the Chums, but we
>>> know
>>> > that they have to shield their eyes against the revelation (against the
>>> > day/light?) that is to come:
>>> >
>>> > "They will put on smoked goggles for the glory of what is coming to
>>> part the
>>> > sky. They fly toward grace." (1085)
>>> >
>>> > As usual, exactly what kind of revelation is to be expected remains
>>> unsaid
>>> > -- the blinding Glory of God, Rilke's terrifying angels, "the light
>>> beyond
>>> > metaphor" (Derek Walcott)...
>>> >
>>> > I also hear echoes of Fausto Majistral's confessions, in particular
>>> "life's
>>> > single lesson:  that there is more accident to it than a man
>>> > can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane" and the task of the
>>> poet to
>>> > invent "pious metaphor" to cloak the isolated and accidental nature of
>>> > things.
>>> >
>>> > I suspect that Aquinas may also be helpful in understanding the
>>> "unsought
>>> > good" becoming "more accessible" to us at the end of AtD. There seem
>>> to be
>>> > some important theological concepts at play here.
>>> >
>>> > -
>>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>
>>
>
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