CoL49 Group Read

[Mark Kohut]

Yeah, Metzger and she complicate our--my--too easy words.....but we will
learn she knows
of his flings with younger women---girls really as Oedipa wonders about too
young......

On Fri, May 10, 2024 at 4:19 PM J K Van Nort <jkvannort at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> *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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> <http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/the-dirty-little-secret-about-nsa-spying-it-doesnt-work.html>,
> and even the top national security experts say that we don’t need it
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> This communication – and any responses – can and will be used against the
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> <http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/government-spying-on-americans-and-then-giving-info-to-giant-corporations.html>
> by the government.
>
>
> 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
>
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
>