CoL49 - 2nd section of chapter 5...."You're gonna want cause & effect"--GR

[Mark Kohut]

https://x.com/14JUN1995/status/1808629365338476896/photo/1

On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 3:01 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Questions:Why is it love and not capitalism that the founder of IA believes
> has ruined his life?
>
>
> The plot of his life has included career, advancement, and marriage. All
> these things have been bestowed on him and his habits have been formed
> around them, but he doesn’t really know how any of them work.
>
> Not surprisingly, his response to losing his job and wife and finding the
> posthorn is a non sequitur:
>
> “Idly, he peeled off a stamp and saw suddenly the image of the muted post
> horn, the skin of his hand showing clearly through the watermark. “A sign,”
> he whispered, “is what it is.” If he’d been a religious man he would have
> fallen to his knees. As it was, he only declared, with great solemnity: “My
> big mistake was love. From this day I swear to stay off of love: hetero,
> homo, bi, dog or cat, car, every kind there is. I will found a society of
> isolates, dedicated to this purpose, and this sign, revealed by the same
> gasoline that almost destroyed me, will be its emblem.” And he did”
>
> - a) there’s a lot about his job but almost nothing about having any
> feelings for his wife
>
> - b) confronting wife and her new lover actually perks him up
>
> - c) so how is his one mistake love?
>
> - d) he reads an arbitrary meaning into the muted posthorn, showing the
> same lack of understanding with which he used to read the specialized memos
>
> - e) he founds an organization based on a made-up interpretation based on
> *nothing*, and in reaction against a feeling of love, when in all of his
> words or actions there’s no sign of it
>
> - f) leaving unaddressed the only real fly in his life’s ointment: the
> computer taking his job, which I guess you could blame on capitalism, but
> wouldn’t it make as much sense to blame the computer?
>
>
>
>
> The question arises - is this meant to be a “scherzo” sidelong view of AA?
> - like some of the over-the-top satirical exploration around AA a few years
> later in _Infinite Jest_?
> - no, not for me anyway: yes, Oedipa does enjoy a drink and no, there’s not
> a lot of condemnation of her for it, but rather the use of brand names and
> drink names seems to imply an acceptance of drinking as a social ritual.
> - but there’s no denying the “scared-straight” potential of the imagery
> around the drunken sailor
> - hence I see no sign of attempts to do any kind of a take-down of AA
> - I think maybe taking AA principles and applying them to love tickles the
> same sort of mordant funny bone as putting mail in a waste can.
>
> — what it might be a takedown of, though, is specious “great moments of
> insight”
> - always reminds me of Kerouac in _Desolation Angels_ where he has the
> bogus satori “you can’t fall down a mountain”
> - patently untrue
> - unimpressive movements to this day grow up around a charismatic leader
> with some “great realization” and people retelling the tale
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 6:37 AM J K Van Nort via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
> > Greetings,
> > Sorry this is late.
> > Summary:
> > Oedipa's conversation continues with the Inamorati Anonymous gentleman.
> He
> > explains their purpose and also the story of the founder, who
> contemplating
> > suicide after the loss of his job and marriage has a revelation. The
> story
> > of how the muted posthorn symbol became a for the group involves a
> Yoyodyne
> > mid level administrator who loses his job, his wife, and his reason to
> live
> > and just as he is about to kill himself in the same form as a Buddhist
> monk
> > protesting Vietnam, he has a revelation that love is the problem. The
> > gasoline has soaked a series of letters that he received (presumably)
> > through W.A.S.T.E. which wipes the ink to reveal a watermark with the
> muted
> > posthorn. He forms the IA and uses the muted posthorn as its symbol.
> > The Isolate leaves her to go to the bathroom and never returns. She
> leaves
> > the Greek Way and wanders the city, finding the posthorn symbol
> everywhere.
> > She finds children dreaming that they are playing together, In a Mexican
> > restaurant, she meets Jesus Arrabal, a Mexican anarchist she had met in
> > Mazatlan with Pierce. He describes Pierce as the reason he has stayed
> with
> > anarchy, as Pierce represents everything he despises. He describes a
> > miracle as 'another world's intrusion into this one. She continues
> through
> > the 'infected city' where she sees more examples of the posthorn, finally
> > finding an old drunken sailor with the posthorn tattooed onto his hand.
> She
> > comforts him, and he asks her to mail a letter to his wife through
> > W.A.S.T.E., which she says she doesn't know how to use. He tells her she
> > can find a location under the highway. She helps him to bed and imagines
> > that he will die by having his cigarette ignite his mattress when he
> falls
> > asleep.
> >
> > Questions:Why is it love and not capitalism that the founder of IA
> > believes has ruined his life?Why would a member of the IA be getting
> drunk
> > in a gay bar?Why does Oedipa feel despair when she realizes that "nobody
> > around her has any sexual relevance" to her?How does the founding story
> of
> > the Isolate at the gay bar compare with the drunken sailor grieving his
> > wife? Why is that important?
> >
> > In solidarity,
> > James
> >
> > Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>