Pynchon and Catholicism

Thu Sep 24 16:34:50 UTC 2020

All the disguising and surreptitious spying......Like Shakey could not
hiding secrets in his plays
his life full of them or one big one....

On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 12:32 PM Gary Webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:

> She analyzes the plays themselves, and attempts to mine them for coded
> references and the like, she takes sort of Greenblatt’s Catholic origin
> story and goes nuts with it...
>
> I  really doubt Shakespeare was part of a Catholic recusant “cell” and was
> trying to influence world events through his work, but it is an
> entertaining read, if naught else...
>
> I don’t know who said this, I think it was Shapiro in 1599, but it is
> quite telling that Shakespeare didn’t end up on the rack or in some sort of
> trouble, given the fate of many of his contemporaries, like Southampton or
> most of the University Wits...He was a writer first and foremost, and
> probably avoided political entanglements, as much as one could those days...
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Sep 24, 2020, at 12:22 PM, Charles Albert <cfalbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > 
> > Does Asquith go anywhere Greenblatt didn't?
> >
> > I got about 1/3 into "Will and the World" and abandoned as a bit too
> contrived....sad, because I loved The Swerve...
> >
> > love,
> >
> > cfa
> >
> >> On Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 12:18 PM Gary Webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> You could argue that the Catholic v. Protestant dynamic is seminal to
> the development of the English language... Starting with the Lollards to
> Cramner’s Book of Common Prayer & the KJB... their influence on the English
> language has been immense, and then there is Shakespeare... I don’t know
> where I come down on his religion, and assuming the Sratfordian
> Shakespeare, he was born in the massive social upheaval of the English
> Reformation, and perhaps kept a covert Catholic faith throughout his
> life...This book by Clare Asquith  came out a few years ago, and gets a
> little crazy, but somewhere in the high drama & conspiracy, there might be
> a truth or two... (
> https://books.google.com/books/about/Shadowplay.html?id=t4BwDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button)...
>
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPhone
> >>
> >> > On Sep 24, 2020, at 11:50 AM, David Elliott via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > 
> >> > “She never was unCatholic.”
> >> >
> >> > I know.
> >> >    On Thursday, September 24, 2020, 11:36:55 AM EDT, Mark Kohut <
> mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > She never was unCatholic.
> >> > On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 10:32 AM David Elliott <ellidavd at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >  Flannery O'Connor? I'd like to hear/read thoughts on her in this
> context.
> >> >
> >> >    On Thursday, September 24, 2020, 06:34:11 AM EDT, Mark Kohut <
> mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > "There is no being an Ex-Catholic, just an upracticing one"---Charles
> >> > Simmons, *Powdered Eggs*,  a non-ex-Catholic.
> >> >
> >> > Catholics do not have the Protestant self-justifications (re
> salvation) and
> >> > the Reformation's creation
> >> > of an individual relation to God.
> >> >
> >> > Therefore Catholics lose EVERYTHING in their relations to their
> >> > metaphysical selves and the universe when they lose
> >> > Catholicism.
> >> >
> >> > Some with great talent need to fill it all in again. With a new vision
> >> > (sometimes a mirror of the old vision) and with a relentless
> >> > style to try to match the incredible complexity of the world.
> >> >
> >> >> On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 6:25 AM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>> Am 24.09.20 um 02:54 schrieb John Bailey:
> >> >>>
> >> >>> I recently observed that several writers whose prose style I've been
> >> >>> admiring were raised Catholic. First it was Gerald Murnane, then
> >> >>> Rachel Cusk, and of course I recalled that Pynchon was raised (half)
> >> >>> Catholic himself. What these very different writers have in common,
> it
> >> >>> seems, is a love of baroque literacy, a willingness to tie their
> >> >>> sentences up in quite sadomasochistic knots, a hovering weirdness
> that
> >> >>> puts them at odds with much of the literary establishment, and a few
> >> >>> other things I can't quite nail.
> >> >>
> >> >> + World-opening Catholicism: Peter Handke receives the Nobel Prize in
> >> >> Literature
> >> >>
> >> >> Peter Handke belongs to the faction of 'ministrants' in
> German-language
> >> >> literature who were socialized Catholically in premodern village
> >> >> cultures after World War II ... +
> >> >>
> >> >> https://ixtheo.de/Record/1686672594
> >> >>
> >> >> "Vom Tod des Buddha, gab es da nicht jene Darstellungen, wo sämtliche
> >> >> Tiere des Erdkreises den Mahatma beweinen, Tränenflüsse vom
> Elefanten,
> >> >> Löwen, Tiger, Adler bis zu Maus, Regenwurm, vielleicht auch Mist-,
> Mai-
> >> >> und Junikäfer: wie aber war der Umgang all dieser Tiere mit dem
> >> >> Erleuchteten zu dessen Lebzeiten gewesen? Darstellungen: keine.
> Beweint,
> >> >> beheult, beachtet allein im Tode?"
> >> >>
> >> >> Peter Handke: Die Obstdiebin. Berlin 2017: Suhrkamp, p. 497.
> >> >>
> >> >>> Some quick searches and yep, other authors that spring to mind as
> >> >>> sharing these qualities turn out to have been raised Catholic:
> Cormac
> >> >>> McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Joyce Carol Oates, George Saunders. That's a
> >> >>> diverse list! But speaking as someone who was raised Catholic
> (though
> >> >>> long out of that club thanks) I find it relatively easy to predict
> if
> >> >>> a writer has the same background.
> >> >>> Obviously a lot has been written on the influence of Judaism on
> Jewish
> >> >>> writers, but I wonder if other strains of Christianity also have a
> >> >>> less obvious impact on the styles of writers raised therein.
> >> >>> --
> >> >>> Pynchon-L:https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >> >>> .
> >> >>
> >> >> --
> >> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >> >>
> >> > --
> >> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > --
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> >> --
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> --
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