Rick-Phil > Recent Status Updates

Leading a reading project on this ole favorite

The contradictions of intent and speech, dubious intentions conveyed through veiled words, only grow

A chapter of pitying events

“Besides, it isn’t laid down that I should go at once with every message; if it were laid down, of course I would go at once with every message; but it isn’t laid down, and I if I never went at all, nothing could be said to me. When I take a message it’s of my own free will. (ch. 10, p. 157)

Is he wrong?

“Besides, it isn’t laid down that I should go at once with every message; if it were laid down, of course I would go at once with every message; but it isn’t laid down, and I if I never went at all, nothing could be said to me. When I take a message it’s of my own free will. (ch. 10, p. 157)

Further, this passage highlights this strange tension between K & the village: K sees folk as people while still according the economic and political trajectory to them as officials. The village seems to see folk through the lens of their culture & as people: they are veiled yet revealed to one another: sometimes where the political and economic would seem undeniable--instead seemingly missing. A curious duplexity

During the editing of chapter 6, Kafka removed an intriguing passage. Though the editing is a good choice on his part, the passage interrupting the course of K.'s intent and the landlady's development in helping him rather than abusing him(though such help may have proven an abuse),an intriguing passage no less. While K imagines Klemm as a person (another K. in some sense), those who love him love him as the official

Chapter 5 is undoubtedly the beset explanation of bureaucracy, by a bureaucrat no less, that I have encountered so far.

I have learned so much about behavioralism and psychological games from this novel

Interesting discussion of psychogenesis. I like the point that psychological conflicts, sexual or not, can manifest themselves in the biological or sensing or mneumonic. Jung seems to think trauma is not an origin or predisposition,but actually something to which psychological significance actually underlies. I read him as meaning the predisposition is actually created & infused by an uncon. underlying significance

Interesting how far one goes to experiment on behavior, whether it is dog-napping with ether, or maintaining a hold on a person. Pointsman's dignity is rather interesting, esp. in contrast to the shrill outbursts, canine experimentation, & the ironic toilet bowl on his foot.

This section seems to further suspicions about psychology, the displacement of God as locus and the natural and industrial conceptions of mercy

Challenging section about a seance. I'm starting to see the juxtaposing of Pirate and his talent with psychoanalysis and psychic warfare, both civil and militaristic. So, far my favorite section: the bit about control and the internal development of creating is brilliant.

Additionally, Pirate and his relationship with Scorpia provide an intriguing character development, esp. contra Roger and Jessica.

of course, it could be heroicism is a word for something involving love.

I think the way Pirate relates with bananas, dreams, and his friends points to something different than his role as a captain in the military. I suspect this will be a major theme throughout the book.

after all, what is more life-affirming than breakfast?the banana's aroma replaces the scents of clamorous,drunken, miasmata. In the strangest way, Pirate's choice to pick bananas seems life-affirming in its commitment to his dream & the salience of bananas for others where there are none. He does not attempt evacuation, he allows assembly for an almost last breakfast. How should we die: attempting heroics,or in love?

Fascinating how bananas and their requisite summer climate are so impacting for Pirate. His dream of feeding England's partygoers banana breakfasts so dear to him that it is compared with a conjurer telling death to fuck off, noting that in the genetic chains: the faces of ancient dear ones form labyrinths.
It almost seems the bananas are a protection for people almost as much as they allow a place of summer.

I love the juxtaposition of the evacuation and warning people, of saving Bloat and only allowing yourself to count bananas as the missile plummets, the red daybreak with the burning rocket and the frozen sweat after entering tropical twilight.
Pynchon's narration takes this story to the next level though. A non-omniscient narrator, seeming transfixed next to pirate, almost talking to him and the audience directly...

Seeing Pirate begin to find a sort of anxiety toward time and seasons, the grayness of winter that ages summer, or a sort of radiant and humid sense of fruitfulness (or banananess) is quite intriguing. The nervousness toward missing sunlight, aging architecture, seems to point toward something more worrisome than a bomb. Pirate's morality even seems caught between friends and obligations for a whole city.

interesting. the living decompositionaly transformed into fertilizer for the living.