CoL49 Group Read

[David Morris]

I can’t think of any character of Pynchon’s having  “abilities of value” that
we are supposed measure to find them “honorable” as opposed to “pathetic.”

If anything, we are supposed to sympathize

On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 3:38 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> His empathy is also a Good. He feels for humanity, the least among us.
> “Debilitating” for action, for doing anything about it, even just keeping
> some cool. Imo.
>
> I believe the text when Oedipa says Pierce is really dead to her. Why else
> would TRP have her say that.
>
> And Mucho believes it too—he who doesn’t believe in a lot of things.
>
> On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 2:52 PM J K Van Nort via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
> > Wendel Maas has no abilities of value it seems, only a pathetic,
> > debilitating empathy. Is there a cringiness to his DJing? His boss
> accuses
> > him of being too horny when he should be a father figure to the teenagers
> > who call him. Mucho doesn’t deny this; he cowardly mutters “censorship”,
> > which implies that he deliberately acts horny. His miserableness
> contrasts
> > with the descriptions of his movements, which Oedipa notices: bounding
> > through the screen door, gliding across the room like a large bird in a
> > thermal. Is Oedipa happy in this marriage? It’s hard to say since she
> > follows her routine of wifely duties. Their bodies remain interlocked
> when
> > Hilarius calls, I think she wants this to be true love, but her memories
> of
> > and the vagueness of when her relationship with pierce ended, make it
> > difficult to identify where her marriage and relationship with Pierce
> > entwined.
> > In solidarity,
> > James
> >
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