CoL49 Group Read

[J K Van Nort]

As someone in the thread has mentioned, Mucho violates McClintic Sphere’s maxim: Be cool, but care. His empathy engulfs his inertia and drive. He can’t get past that to act as Mark points out. The empathy demonstrates his connection to humanity, but he can’t get beyond it. He seems incapable of the distance necessary to be "cool" while caring. So why does he “bound through the screen door and gliding across the room. It’s as though his directs his energy effusively, leaving none left for the real struggle. As to her affection for him, I’m ambivalent since she doesn’t even make it a day before she’s having sex with Metzger, which is non-consensual since he continues after she falls asleep, but she initiates it when she finds him sleeping. That doesn’t sound like someone happy with their marriage, even if she’s over Pierce. Also, she says she ended with Pierce a year before she married Mucho, but she felt obligated to tell him, which implies that she still had a relationship with Mucho after they met/began dating. Yes, sympathy is how we should respond, but that sympathy comes from critiquing his actions.


In solidarity,
James

____________________________________________
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    On Friday, May 10, 2024 at 03:52:40 PM EDT, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:  
 
 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
>
> ____________________________________________
> WARNING:  The National Security Agency is likely recording  and storing
> this communication as part of its unlawful spying programs on all
> Americans.  Mass surveillance doesn’t keep us safe, and even the top
> national security experts say that we don’t need it.  This communication –
> and any responses – can and will be used against the American people at any
> time in the future should folks in government decide to go after us for
> political reasons.   And private information in digital communications may
> be given to big companies by the government.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
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