Another Pynchon theme manifesting again in the real world.

Sun Sep 10 07:51:09 CDT 2017

Let me start with CN.

The film, a big hit with the public and the critics, only presents a
few scenes from the book.
Thew film nearly eliminates what makes the novel worth reading, that
is, Chief's paranoid yet brilliant point of view, the idea that "even
if it didin't happen it's true."

The film reduces Chief to a minor sidekick Indian figure, and his
narrative, a complex and experimental achievement for a young author,
that has flashes of the great Faulkner and inspiration from the whale
and the buddy-tale in Melville's M-D, to camera work that is quite
amazing but that also works against the depths of the narrative.

The film turns major characters into minor ones, and turns some
characters into their opposites.

It omits most of the combine stuff  and how the damning of the PNW
rivers, the destruction of the fishing tribes, the wars against Native
Americans and on Asians, then the intermarriage and reservation
genocide, a destiny manifest by the racist puritan legacy, that the
books explicitly connects with the African American experience from
cotton field to cotton factory, and with the cold war paranoid
co-option of the carnival and worker brotherhood, of radical
democracy.

The novel dives deep into the sanity and insanity of the lost American
hero (who later become Zoyd's lost wages in a dress collecting a govt.
check), and the causes a cultural schizophrenia and self loathing.
This theme is developed extensively in the novel and is either
neglected or distorted in the film. It plays out most in Chief's
relationship with RPM whom he sees as a man his father was before he
climbed into a bottle to drown his guilt for selling out.

The Veteran histories are also essential to the novel but are only
caps and props in the film.

The film's greatest flaw, as an adaptation,  is the distortion of Big
Nurse and the misogynistic violence it sets up.

 ....but the work theme is still there, though it is subordinated to
the therapy theme, the power of pranksters and the subversive power of
laughter, the M-D/Christ fisher of men martyrdom....and so on.

The film rearranges the worker relationships so that the black boys
make little sense, the doctor, who befriends RPM, is depicted as an
ineffectual fool and stooge to NR, Harding is not sympathetic, never
heroic as he is in the novel.

In any event.....STAGN.....

On Sat, Sep 9, 2017 at 11:23 AM, Mike Weaver <mike.weaver at zen.co.uk> wrote:
> Cuckoo's Nest - A key difference between the film and the book is in the
> book McMurthy tears off the front of Big Nurse's dress, revealing her
> breasts - a symbol of her suppressed humanity. In the film he attacks her,
> which reduces him to just another violent man driven mad by the System and
> loses entirely Kesey's point about the sexual component of repression (and
> the utter ruthlessness of his lobotomy).
>
> Kesey and feminism is no doubt a much studied subject of which I know
> nothing, but his personal response that I saw,  though pertinent, was IMO
> weak. Sometimes a Great Notion is a most magnificent novel, in my top 5, but
> it is at core a celebration of exclusively macho and individualist traits.
> Kesey's defence against feminist criticism was that Viv was the one who
> walked away, but given his commitment to carnival, the life affirming
> benefits of craziness, I'm not sure that saying Viv is sane is an accolade,
> coming from him.
>
> So please Ish, expand on your "in STAN we have many of the feminist themes
> we find in VL. " coz I see little more than the geographic connection and
> would be interested in being prodded in a new direction.
>
> cheers
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> On 09-Sep-17 12:03 PM, ish mailian wrote:
>>
>> I introduced Cuckoo's Nest after JT connected anarchism with carnival.
>> And, because KK's second novel, _Sometimes a Great Notion_ is about
>> work in the logging industry and a strike, and is perhaps the
>> quintessential PNW novel, on that can be read with VL.
>>
>> Also, if you remember the CN film, you recall that Big Nurse is
>> something of a evil bitch. Not exactly KK's idea. And in STAN we have
>> many of the feminist themes we find in VL.
>>
>> In any event, the carnival in CN is the direct connection to the
>> carnival in GR and to P's anarchism themes generally.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 10:50 PM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> What a wonderful book! Thanks for bringing it up. I always thought the
>>> movie
>>> (that I saw some years after reading the book) much inferior.
>>>
>>> 2017-09-07 1:46 GMT+02:00 ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>> Yeah, carnival can be one person's anarchy or silly.
>>>>
>>>> Ever read Cuckoo's Nest? Maybe that was a long time ago. And, well,
>>>> with the film, most readers forget most of the details, so... and,
>>>> well,  the book, KK's attempt to pay tribute to Melville and M-D, and,
>>>> while at it,  write a GAN,  a counter cultural carnivalsque satire
>>>> about work in America... the boys in the hospital decide to have a
>>>> carnival. It's a break from the routine, the chores, the work. RPM is
>>>> out to organize the boys into men, American men in a radical
>>>> democracy. Now the Big Nurse, others might see a carnival as
>>>> dangerous. There is something akin to anarchy in RPM and the boys when
>>>> they become aware of their exploitation, of their potential to make
>>>> meaningful play. What, with a homosexual, a half Indian, and the rest
>>>> of the whole sick crew, their not exactly a labor force.
>>>>
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivalesque
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 8:40 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I hear what you are saying, Anarchy seems llike a crazy goal. I hear a
>>>>> difference between anarchy and anarchism. Anarchy is more frequently
>>>>> used to
>>>>> describe a disorderly state than to describe a community without
>>>>> rulers. Old
>>>>> growth forests have no rulers but they are rarely seen as anarchy.
>>>>>
>>>>> As far as human societies or times with no clear rulers or where power
>>>>> is shared equally, it actually happens a lot, but mostly on a local
>>>>> level.
>>>>> There are neighborhoods, towns, urban and rural communities where
>>>>> harmony is
>>>>> stronger than tyranny, anyone can have a say if they are respectful to
>>>>> others, and people cooperate to solve problems  and make their
>>>>> community
>>>>> sustainable.. Often in these places there are obvious leaders , but
>>>>> they are
>>>>> leaders because they are respected and generous , not because they
>>>>> domineer
>>>>> in a hierarchical power structure.
>>>>>
>>>>> The issue of sustainability seems to me to go to the heart of all
>>>>> failed
>>>>> systems. Is capitalism sustainable? Is fossil fuel based technology
>>>>> sustainable? Is the rule of 51% sustainable? Oligarchy has endured for
>>>>> a
>>>>> long time but is it sustainable?  Is american empire sustainable.
>>>>>
>>>>> The anarchist golf game may have seemed silly to you but it reminded me
>>>>> of good times with crazy friends being goofy. Mardis Gras looks silly
>>>>> to
>>>>> some but I can tell that for you it allows powerful self-liberation.
>>>>> Most
>>>>> people have times in life of liberating rituals of rule -breaking and
>>>>> mockery of sacred cows. The discussions that take place in the golf
>>>>> game are
>>>>> really funny and actually rather subtle and intellectually lively.
>>>>> When it came time to do something   at Yzles-Bains the anarchists at
>>>>> the
>>>>> center of the story ended up with the unlikely focus of song-gathering
>>>>> in
>>>>> Thrace looking for remnants of neo-Pythagoreans identifiable because
>>>>> they
>>>>> favor the Phrygian musical mode.  We can’t entirely tell if it is a
>>>>> cover
>>>>> story or simply a wacky pursuit that opens doors of synchronicity and
>>>>> puts
>>>>> our merry band in the right place to see hope in the midst of horror
>>>>> and
>>>>> discover their unexpected inner strength and heroism. Part of the goal
>>>>> is to
>>>>> show readers more aspects of how the battle lines of a world war were
>>>>> in
>>>>> place  before it began . For Reef, Cyprian and Yashmeen this gathering
>>>>> leads
>>>>> them toward a period of profound transformation. To me the point is
>>>>> that
>>>>> each person is very limited in what they can do, but there are avenues
>>>>> that
>>>>> emerge from friendship and bold exploration that can effect powerful
>>>>> change.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sep 4, 2017, at 5:35 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I only push this because Pynchon does, and it needs context.  For P,
>>>>>> Anarchy goes back to GRs Zone, a place of crazy freedom in wake of
>>>>>> total
>>>>>> collapse, which can't be sustained.  It is not a model of sustained
>>>>>> living,
>>>>>> despite AGD's silly golf game.  It is a very short-lived thing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 4:16 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> So your anarchism jag isn't a real proscription.  It is a plaything.
>>>>>> A
>>>>>> Pynchon fanboy thing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 3:57 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> Anarchism as I wrote about it here is working with whatever, jumping
>>>>>> in
>>>>>> spontaneously before or with  FEMA HELP and FEMA is goddam necessary
>>>>>> OR
>>>>>> ELSE. ...More incalculable deaths and reams of suffering and hurt.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I wrote " part" of....not as a guiding political philosophy, like
>>>>>> libertarianism, which is  perhaps the exact opposite of helping ANYONE
>>>>>> but
>>>>>> oneself. ...anarchism allows selflessness.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I just read a decent piece about the horrible tornado in Kansas,
>>>>>> killing more than Harvey has, and the gist was FEMA was invaluable for
>>>>>> money
>>>>>> (paid 90% of clean-up cost) and worked best when "spontaneous groups"
>>>>>> --like
>>>>>> churches-- local leaders and Orgs were the go-to ones for advice and
>>>>>> disbursement.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And I'm a big Govt " liberal" myself. Who loves selfless helping and
>>>>>> dancing. Esp in musicals.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sep 4, 2017, at 1:59 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Anarchism is akin to Libertarianism: freedumb from guvmint!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Imagine a world in Houston without FEMA!  Such a dream!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And no interstate highways!  And no EPA!  And no Medicare or Social
>>>>>>> Security!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You may sat I'm a dreamer, but they're about to be deported.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 11:48 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> Anarchism. Pervasive as we know (and been written about).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Anarchism, not as any kind of policy or new government notion but
>>>>>>> precisely as getting shit done without government, outside of it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The natural way hundreds of thousands of simple citizens
>>>>>>> "self-organized"--
>>>>>>> this is the key,-- like the deaf-mute dance under the bridge where
>>>>>>> everyone
>>>>>>> dances together without bumping with no one having to direct the
>>>>>>> dancing--
>>>>>>> like the search and rescue and help operation in Houston after
>>>>>>> Harvey.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Since a guy named Prince wrote about the "spontaneous groupings" of
>>>>>>> volunteer
>>>>>>> help after the Halifax explosion disaster , it has always been a part
>>>>>>> of every disaster
>>>>>>> since. They say.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Spontaneous groupings = self-organizing= equal apolitical,
>>>>>>> non-violent
>>>>>>> anarchism in
>>>>>>> the real world.
>>>>>
>>>>> -
>>>>> 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=nchon-l
>>
>
>
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