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

[Michael Bailey]

All right, if I don’t deny he’s experienced love - say his love for his
meaningless job and marriage is genuine enough -

Then why would that be the thing he renounces?

That’s the non sequitur.

With AA, alcohol is the thing that fucked them up.
Making a big deal out of renouncing alcohol makes sense, because that’s
what harmed them

But love isn’t what fucked IA founder up. It’s the thing he lost.

So is his renunciation more Buddhist (like the self-immolator, news of whom
inspired him to imitate) in renouncing desire and attachment  - or like
Simon and Garfunkel, “I am a Rock” “I have no need for friendship ,
friendship causes pain”?

Or just non sequitur imho.




On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:24 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>>
>