From: zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Venedikt Erofejev: Moskva - Petushki
Keywords: Moskva, Petushki
Date: 17 Nov 92 07:40:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Nov17.024013.17526
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <1992Nov16.213619.17516@husc3.harvard.edu>
verbit@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:

>>verbit@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:

>>>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

MZ:
>>>>Let me make it clear: either you share my interest in finding out the
>>>>true meaning of the work, assuming that there is truth to be discovered
>>>>therein, or you are solely concerned about winning the argument.  In the
>>>>latter case, please do not bother answering, -- I concede your point by
>>>>default.  Life is to short for this sort of interminable bullshit, and I
>>>>have other cats to flog.

MV:
>>>	I think that in the case of Erofeev the question
>>>	is not of truth, but one of *context* in which
>>>	his book is taken. Clearly, we disagree what
>>>	context is appropriate: you propose one of Roman
>>>	tradition, my guess is the Russian avangarde
>>>	and conceptualism, starting with Silver Age
>>>	and ending somewhere around SMOG. 

MZ:
>>You are avoiding the question.  Every student of linguistics knows
>>that meaning is context-dependent.  The point is whether there exist
>>objective criteria for fixing the right context.  I say that such
>>criteria exist in the text itself, taken together with the historical
>>circumstances of its production.

MV:
>	The criteria are never positive and in the case
>	of Erofeev (with ambivalence as a stylistical 
>	principle) depend more on historical circumstances.

Even if ambivalence is a stylistical principle, the text still has a
single meaning, which is ambivalent, -- in the manner of a _double
entendre_, wherein a certain decorous *public* surface is overwhelmed
by a rebellious subtext.  There is nothing about this technique that
resists interpretation any more than a "standard" text.  Any number of
exegetic studies of such phenomena may be profitably consulted in our
matter; a classic text is Leo Strauss' "Persecution and the Art of
Writing".

MV:
>	As in the case of imaginable Spanish writer (see below)
>	you never can tell the context from the text itself,
>	this is just definition of the context (see the
>	Borges story just below).

Misha, I have news for you, -- the writer to whom you are referring
was *imagined* and created of whole cloth by Borges, in order to
support his *personal* thesis about self-effacement.  Do you see the
contradiction implicit in your example?

MV:
>>>	Borges once wrote a story where the contemporary
>>>	Spanish author writes Don Kishot identical to
>>>	Cervantes' one, but due to different context the
>>>	story acquires completely different meaning.
>>>	This is what you are doing with Erofeev:
>>>	putting his work in context of Thomas Aquinat, Beckett
>>>	and Rimbaud (IMO, totally alien one) you 
>>>	completely redefine the meaning of his book.

MZ:
My selection of context is supported by *internal* textual evidence;
>>by contrast, yours appears to be spuriously self-selected.  I have
>>given solid examples of allusions to Ovid, Rabelais, etc.; where does
>>Erofeev appeal or allude to the tradition of your preference?  The
>>sole _M-P_ citation I can think of at the moment, is a clearly
>>derisive one, referring to Blok; likewise, his reference to Tsvetayeva
>>as a powerful emetic (in the Rozanov essay) would seem to contradict
>>your assumptions.  Note that I am in substantial agreement with you
>>concerning his anti-aestheticism; however, to my mind, this only
>>supports my case.  Remember that Flaubertian aestheticism is
>>intrinsically connected with the doctrine of pure art, i.e. aesthetic
>>(endophoric) amoralism!

MV:
>	The Russian avangardist tradition depends, as Tsvetaeva
>	wrote, on XVIII century more than on XIX. This is why
>	the *plan* of Erofeev's book is taken from Radishchev,
>	Russian writer and prisoner of conscience of XVIII
>	century. His book is also a divided on (~20) little
>	chapters, each one named by some station between
>	Moscow and Petersbourgh, and there are lots of
>	stylistical borrowings from Radishchev in Erofeev's
>	book.  I have read a good research
>	where Erofeev's aesthetic orientation was 
>	compared with Radishchev's one basing, in particular,
>	on the choice of roads: Radishchev's from Petersbourgh
>	to Moscow and Erofeev's - from Moscow to Vladimir,
>	("Enthusiasts Road"), the same road where the political and
>	others prisoners were taken in old times.
>
>	Another allusion is V. A. Sologub's book (~1848) Tarantas,
>	where the road Moscow-Kazan' takes a hallucinatory
>	appearance as far as the heroes go East:
>	the basic idea is that the country Eastern than
>	Moscow is hallucinatory and non-existent.

So far, so good.  But the problem is that the obvious debt to
Radischev is just *that*, -- there is absolutely no need to associate
it with Russian avant-garde, just because of some remark spewed out by
"Marina who wrote `Beda' (in her case, a mistranslation of `Malheur'
or `Douleur') with a capital B" (remember this?), -- a straightforward
interpretation of this evidence as related to the Enlightenment is far
preferrable to your strained, unsupported overinterpretation.  As for
Sologub, methinks you are confusing him with his symbolist
near-homonym.

MV:
>	There are allusions just from the top of my head,
>	surely even the idea of Erofeev's book has
>	rich (semi-real) connotations in Russian avangardist
>	tradition. Don't forget *textual* borrowings from
>	Rozanov, allusions to Pushkin, Nabokov, Blok,
>	which are not really countable (for reference,
>	there was something by Weil and Genis which
>	is surely available in the States, and there
>	are lots more of critical stuff in Russia;
>	I can ask my friends-professionals if you
>	need).

I see no evidence of Rozanov in _M-P_; likewise, Nabokov is only to be
found in a _calembour_ in _The Walpurgis Night_, as far as I can
determine.  Pray tell.

MV:
>	Anyway, I don't want to indulge in the textual
>	search, because this is better to do in Cyrillic
>	and because the volume is too much for news:
>	your Swiss philologist counted 400 references,
>	and I guess that someone with Russian
>	background will find 400 more.

Guess what, Misha, -- there are Russian Helvetians, born and bred.
Welcome to the diaspora.  As for volume concerns, fuck it.  I shall
cast the first stone anon.

MV:
>>>	From the scholarly point of view, that's
>>>	a fine exercise, and I am sceptical enough
>>>	towards the process of truth seeking to
>>>	assume that this is a natural purpose of scholarly
>>>	practice.

MZ:
>>I am not.  Please elaborate on your skepticism.

MV:
>	Mostly because the dead man does not bite
>	anymore, and the dead stuff does not interest
>	anybody.

Some of my best friends are dead.  A dead Venedict Erofeev has more
vitality than a whole herd of dull Maddoxen, and sharper teeth than my
favorite cur, Fido.

MV:
>		 Another reason is that I consider the whole
>	philology as a scholarly exercise having nothing
>	to do with the truth.

Among other nomothetic disciplines, philology, or the love of _logos_
subsumes mathematics, logic, and linguistics, whose claim to truth is
beyond all reasonable doubt.  As for its idiographic aspects, which
include literary criticism, you must appreciate the fundamental fact
that *all* human scholarship is based on the interpretation of texts.
So are all human rights.  Deny the objectivity of interpretation, and
you abjure your rights and denounce your reason in one fell swoop.

MV:
>			      One more reason, that I don't
>	believe in truth because the world where it
>	exists is too boring anyway.

Indeed it is.  And the world where it does not exist is too brutal.  I
speak as an afficionado of brutality.  How do you feel about boredom?

MZ:
>>Misha, the Thelemites may not have had a place to go to Mass, but each
>>>>of them had a private chapel.  What do you think Rabelais expected them
>>>>to do there, -- jerk off?  It is well known that the utopia of Rabelais
>>>>has its origins in the Augustinian identification of freedom and worship
>>>>(see the oft-cited article by Per Nykrog in the _Revue d'Histoire
>>>>litt\'eraire de la France_, LXV (1965), 385--397), -- indeed, its very
>>>>name is replete with evangelical connotations associated with the
>>>>author's friend, Erasmus.  It is equally well known that the peculiar
>>>>anticlericalism of the author of _Gargantua_ is fully consistent with
>>>>his Christian faith, -- just read the famous book on the religion of
>>>>Rabelais, written by no less of a historical authority than Lucien
>>>>Febvre.

MV:
>	One thing is that some theologist wrote and another
>	is what Rabelais ideas imply. I can say what (I believe)
>	follows from Thelem conception: total negation
>	of Christian ideas for tha sake of Renaissance
>	humanism. More contemporary Thelemites (there were
>	people even in this century who played with the idea)
>	will agree. Naturally, I prefer to judge Rabelais
>	religiosity not by the work of some theologist
>	(I'd never believe a word on religion said
>	by someone allegedly religious), but by his
>	own writings. And by response in people they 
>	cause.

Since most people have no idea of history, nor the first clue about
reading, your reader-response hermeneutic theory is only as strong as
its weakest link; seeing as there is no known lower bound on human
stupidity, that link can be weak indeed.  As for your sworn automatic
mistrust of judgments of religion made by the "allegedly religious", I
really hope that you will get over it.  It is common among intelligent
adults to take arguments on their own merits, rather than on the
alleged creed of their _Destinateur_.

MV:
>>>	Ditto for Christianity of Parny and Pushkin's
>>>	translation from latter: there are always people
>>>	who will rabidly argue that every particular
>>>	person is Christian. I don't think that this
>>>	discussion could be resolved.

MZ:
>>Misha, the people I am citing are respected scholars, not cranks.
>>Lucien Febvre is all but deified by the vast majority of working
>>historians today, much like Ranke was a century ago.  If anything is
>>kinown in literary history, then so is the above referenced thesis on
>>the religion of Rabelais.  But if you want to revel in your obstinacy,
>>then so be it.

MV:
>	The question "Was Rabelais religious" belong to history,
>	and there I tend to believe the historicist. The question
>	"Were his writings anti-Christian?" belongs to my personal
>	judgment. I have read the book (and still reread it sometimes)
>	often enough to guess. The Christianity and Renaissance
>	humanism (exemplified by Rabelais and Jonathan Swift
>	and Villon *) are clearly incompatible, as well as Christianity
>	and the totally carnivalized view of the world practiced
>	by Rabelais. *) I forgot to mention the Medici family 
>	and Cesare Borgia :) 

Guess what, -- only the historian can supply you with the proper
context for understanding the writings.  It so happens that the only
professional historical instruction I have received was in an early
modern European history seminar by Carlo Ginzburg.  Rest assured that
a similar experience would quickly disabuse you of your notions about
Rabelais and Villon, never mind Dean Swift.

MV:
>	Well, the last two books of Pantagruel serie
>	are not so carnivalized or humanistic, 
>	so I tend to agree even with their alleged
>	religiosity (though it's being gnostic
>	rather than Christian). This is not true for
>	his first books. Note that Thelem *completely
>	disappears* from last ones! And note that
>	the connection between these last books and
>	Erofeev's one is non-existent.

Very well, I'll give you something to chew on.  The following text is
copyright Michael Zeleny, 1990, 1991, 1992.  It is extracted from a
projected posthumous publication of my collected papers.  Enjoy.

________________________________________________________________________

\section{Utopia.}

{\bf Let me tell you about it.  Some ten years ago I lived in
Orekhovo-Zuevo. When I moved into my new room, there were four already
living there and I became the fifth.  We lived in perfect harmony, without
a squabble.  If one of us wanted to drink port, he'd get up and say:
``Guys, I want to drink port.''  And we'd all say: ``Fine. Drink port.
We'll drink port with you.'' If one of us got a thirst for beer, we all got
a thirst for beer.

Beautiful.  But then all of a sudden I began to notice that the four of
them were somehow becoming {\it distant}; they kept {\it whispering} and
{\it following} me around.  That seemed strange, and even a little
worrisome.  And in their faces I read a worry like my own, and perhaps even
fear... ``What's the matter?'' --- I agonized. --- ``Why?''

And then one fine evening I found out what the matter was and why.

That day, I remember, I never got out of bed: I drank some beer and got
depressed.  I was just lying there, depressed.

And then I saw the four of them quietly surrounding me --- two sat at my
head and two at my feet.  And they looked me straight in the eye, they
looked with reproach, they looked with the bitterness of men unable to
understand some secret contained within me...  Sometthing must have
happened.

--- Listen, --- they said, --- {\it you better drop that.}

--- ``Drop'' what?.. --- I sat up, amazed.

--- Drop your attitude of being a cut above others... that we are some
bozos, and you are Cain and Manfred...

--- But where did you get this idea?!..

--- We'll tell you where.  Did you drink beer today?

--- I did.

--- Did you drink a lot?

--- A lot.

--- Then get up and go.

--- ``Go'' where?

--- As if you didn't know!  So it goes --- we are some boobs and
louse-bags, and you are Cain and Manfred...

--- Pardon me, --- I said, --- I never claimed that...

--- Oh yes, you did.  From the momentg you moved in with us --- you've been
saying it every day.  Saying not with words, but with deeds.  or rather not
with deeds, but with the absence of deeds.  You've been saying it {\it
negatively...}

--- What ``deeds''?  What ``{\it absence}''? --- my eyes were wide with
amazement...

--- Everyone knows what deeds. You don't make any nature stops, that's
what.  We knew right away there was something wrong with you.  Ever since
you moved in not one of us has seen you go to the toilet.  If it was just
the major need, all right! but not even to whiz, not once... not even that!

And all this was said without a smile, in the tone of someone mortally
offended.

--- Look, guys, you just don't understand...

--- We understand, all right...

--- But you don't.  I just can't do it like you can: just get up, and say
loud and clear: ``Well, guys, I'm off for a piss!'' or ``Well, guys, I'm
off for a crap!''  I just can't...

--- And why can't you?  We can, but you can't!  So you're better than we
are! We are just filthy beasts, and you are pure as driven snow!..

--- No, no, how can I explain...

--- No need to explain... we understand it all.

--- But listen, ... can't you see ... there are things in this world...

--- We know as well as you do the sort of things there are and the sort of
things there aren't.

--- And there was no way I could get through to them. Their grim glances
pierced my soul...  I began to give in.

--- Well, of course, I can...   I too could...

--- There you go.  So you can do it just like we do.  But we can't do i
like you.  Naturally, you can do everything, but we can't do anything.
You're Manfred, you're Cain, and we're nothing but dirt under your feet.

--- Oh, no, no. --- Here I became completely confused. --- There are
certain things in this world... there are certain areas... one can't just
get up and go.  Because there is self-control, or whatever...  there is a
certain sacred shame, ever since Ivan Turgenev... and then --- that oath of
Herzen's on the Sparrow Hills...  And after all that to get up and say:
``Right, guys...''  It's so demeaning... For if one has a sensitive
soul...''

And they, all for of them, were withering me with their looks.  I shrugged
my shoulders, and fell hopelessly silent.

--- Enough of that stuff about Ivan Turgenev.  You can talk all you like,
we've all read him ourselves.  Better tell us this: did you drink any beer
today?

--- I did.

--- How many?

--- Two half-liter ones, and one quarter.

--- All right then, get up and go.  So thal we can all see you go.  Stop
torturing and humiliating us.  Get up and go.

All right, I got up and went.  Not in order to relieve myself.  To relieve
them.  And when I got back, one of them said:  ``With such shameful views
you will always remain alone and miserable.''

Yes, he was absolutely right.}\footnote{{\sl MP}, pp. 24--7; MC, pp. 26--32.}

Once again, a microcosm is represented as a single room; once again the
references are to classics.  Let us examine them.

The hero of the poem is a citizen of a utopian society; and the
paradoxes implicit in all utopian political thought are most clearly
seen in the {\it locus classicus} of utopian humanism, the {\it
Th\'el\`eme} episode of {\sl Gargantua} by Fran\c{c}ois Rabelais.  The
Th\'el\`eme abbey, given by the victorious king Gargantua to Fr\`ere
Jean as recompense for his loyal service during the Picrocholian War,
is an abbey {\bf au contraire de toutes aultres,}\footnote{See
Fran\c{c}ois Rabelais, {\sl \OE uvres compl\`etes}, Paris: Gallimard,
1955, I.lii, p. 148; cf.  Fran\c{c}ois Rigolot, {\sl Les Langages de
Rabelais}, {\sl \'Etudes Rabelaisiennes}, tome X, Gen\`eve: Librairie
Droz 1972, pp. 78--79 and the discussion in Andr\'e Glucksmann, {\sl
Les Ma\^{\i}tres penseurs}, Paris: Grasset, pp.  11--42.} and it is
the very contrariety, exemplified in the idea of an anti-abbey, that
serves as the foundation of the entire episode.  For an anti-convent
must be ruled by anti-rules, and so, while other abbeys must have an
abbot, Fr\`ere Jean explicitly refuses to be charged with governing
Th\'el\`eme: ``{\bf comment (disoit-il) pourroy-je gouverner aultruy,
qui moy-mesmes gouverner ne s\c{c}aurois?}''\footnote{Rabelais, loc.
cit., I.lii: p. 147.} Although other monasteries are surrounded by
walls, Th\'el\`eme won't have any, --- apparently anyone is free to
come and go.  If a woman should enter a conventional monastery, the
places desecrated by her presence are immediately purified; but in
Th\'el\`eme such rites will be performed only when the abbey's ground
is soiled by a monk or a nun.

This last condition already suggests that the utopian freedom is not
without its negative bounds: if {\it only} the free spirits are to be
tolerated inside, there must be found a way to exclude all others.
Let us recall the principal text of the abbey:

{\bf Toute leur vie estoit employ\'ee non par loix, statuz ou reigles,
mais selon leur vouloir et franc arbitre.  Se levoient du lict quand
bon leur sembloit, beuvoient, mangeoient, travailloient, dormoient
quand le d\'esir leur venoit; nul ne les esveilloit, nul ne les
parforceoit ny \`a boire, ny \`a manger, ny \`a faire chose aultre
quelconques.  Ainsi l'avoit estably Gargantua.  En leur reigle
n'estoit que ceste clause:

\quad \quad \quad \quad FAY CE QUE VOULDRAS,

parce que les gens lib\`eres, bien instruictz, conversans en
compaignies honnestes, ont par nature un instinct et aguillon, qui
tousjours les poulse \`a faictz vertueux et retire de vice, lequel ils
nommoient honneur.  Iceulx, quand par vile subjection et contraincte
sont d\'eprim\'ez et asserviz d\'etournent la noble affection, par
laquelle \`a vertuz franchement tendoient, \`a d\'eposer et enfraindre
ce joug de servitude: car nous entreprenons tousjours choses
d\'efendues et convoitons ce que nous est
d\'eni\'e.}\footnote{Rabelais, loc. cit., I.lvii, pp. 159--60.
Contrast this majestic view of natural virtue with the earlier claim
of Grandgousier of natural depravity of Picrochol: {\bf {\it Dont j'ay
congneu que Dieu \'eternel l'a laiss\'e au gouvernail de son franc
arbitre et propre sens, qui ne peult estre que meschant sy par gr\^ace
divine n'est continuellement guid\'e}} (Rabelais, loc. cit., I.xxix:
p. 90); strangely enough, the thelemites are capable of remaining
virtuous without divine intervention.  See Lucien Febvre, {\sl Le
Probl\`eme de l'incroyance au $16^{\text{e}}$ si\`ecle}, Paris:
\'Editions Albin Michel, 1968, pp. 147--50, 233-4, 262, on the
question of thelemite religiosity, and ibid., p. 289 on the Erasmian
origin of the abbey's rule.}

Notably, the anti-orders which rule the thelemites are as categorical
and imperative in their negative admonitions as the statutes of
conventional monasteries.\footnote{See the discussion in Rigolot, op.
cit., pp. 78--82.} The denizens of Rabelais' utopia prefigure the
ideal polis of Rousseau: they are literally forced to be free, but
forced by the royal edict, rather than the mysterious {\it volont\'e
g\'en\'erale}.  Thus Fr\`ere Jean, the ostensible beneficiary of the
king's will, is virtually excluded from planning the abbey.  Moreover,
the astronomical amounts demanded by the enormity of the project serve
to emphasize the fact that, as rightly notes Fran\c{c}ois Rigolot,
{\bf la v\'erit\'e de Th\'el\`eme, c'est qu'elle ne peut \^etre que
{\it th\'el\^ema}, d\'esir, vell\'eit\'e, projet.  Mais d\`es qu'elle
tente de s'incarner, elle meurt.}\footnote{Rigolot, op. cit, p. 81.}

And there remains yet another problem, that of ascertaining that all
maliciousness is indeed excluded from the abbey's grounds by such
natural instinct, as would not interfere with the liberty of
thelemites. Alas, the issue of this liberty and spontaneity is itself
permeated with the spirit of self-contradiction.

{\bf Par ceste libert\'e entr\`erent en louable \'emulation de faire
tous ce que \`a un seul voyoient plaire.  Si quelq'un ou quelcune
disoit: ``Beuvons'', tous beuvoient; si disoit: ``Jouons'', tous
jouoient; si disoit ``Allons \`a l'esbat \`es champs'', tous y
alloyent.}\footnote{Rabelais, loc. cit., I.lvii, p. 160.} The
explanation of this harmony is simple: {\bf Th\'el\`eme, manoir de la
libert\'e, ne peut se satisfaire d'aucune forme de contrainte.  Il
faut donc que ses pensionnaires ne soient mus que par le ``bon
plaisir''; mais pour que cela ne d\'eg\'en\`ere pas en anarchie, il
faut que les spontan\'eit\'es s'accordent.}\footnote{Rigolot, op.
cit., p. 92.} In order for this anarchist utopia to avoid descending
into chaos of strife and contention, the impulses of its participants
must coincide at all times.  But how can one be genuinely spontaneous
in concert with others?

We have arrived at Erofeev's point of departure.  The thelemite
harmony is recapitulated in the overcrowded communal apartment, with
but a small exception: even as he accompanies his comrades in their
libations, the hero is not excreting like everybody else.  Moreover,
his disability is caused by a sense of sacred shame, a parodic trait
of the intelligentsia, and a modern counterpart of the aristocratic
sense of honor shared by the telemites, which makes him incapable of
getting along with the ``common people''.  Naturally, these latter are
justly outraged by this pernicious violation of the unwritten order.
Since their {\it modus vivendi} is organized around drinking,
Veni\c{c}ka's urinary dissidence directly undermines the private
counterpart of their public happiness.  It is not enough to comply in
the voluntary aspects of life; a true thelemite must honor his
companions by synchronizing {\it all} of his actions with theirs, down
to his last heartbeat.  If spontaneity is not instinctual, it does not
exist, and {\it ipso facto}, neither does spontaneous harmony; and in
a utopian society, {\it abjection} is the sole alternative to harmony.
Consequently his peers are justified in seeing our hapless hero as a
demonic character out of Byron, insofar as he dares to differ from
them in his bodily functions.  And so their demand that he ``get up
and go'' travesties {\bf `Talitha cum'} of Jesus raising the dead, the
leitmotif of the book.\footnote{See Mark 5.41.} In a world without
miracles, Veni\c{c}ka spiritual quest is tragically doomed...

The utopia of Rabelais is frozen forever in the stage of becoming; the
dystopia of Erofeev is all too real.  The excretory uniformity
demanded of its hero is not at all an exaggeration: just as life in a
communal apartment erases the boundaries between the private and the
social,\footnote{See Joseph Brodsky, {\sl In a Room and a Half}, in
{\sl Less Than One}, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986, pp.
447--501.} it makes this banal living arrangement into a perfect
setting for exploring the fatal defect of a society on the endless
road to communism.  Statutory equality admits no frivolous exceptions;
with modesty as his tragic flaw, Veni\c{c}ka is forever bound to be a
black sheep, his sensitive soul pierced by the hostile, intrusive,
relentless glances of his four comrades, which prefigure his final,
disastrous allegorical encounter with the four founding fathers of his
realm.

____________________________________________________________________


You will recall my allusion to the second, grotesque and tragic
recapitulation of the noble _homo erectus_ of Ovid, which appears at
the end of _Moskva-Petushki_ in a description of a man, whose upper
half, after he is run over by a train in the station, "remains
standing next to the tracks, just like a bust of some scumbags you can
see standing on pedestals all over the city."  Consider the fate of
this exemplary personage, dead of total obliteration of his lower
parts, yet still standing proud in this quintessentially human
attitude, even as the malignant, angelic children gleefully desecrate
his mortal remains.  Consider also Venichka's failure to conform in
the functioning of his lower parts to the voluntarily enforced
standard of spontaneous conformity.  It seems clear to me that the
hero's tragic flaw is inherent in the conflict between his astral
inclinations and lower duties (see his references to Corneille in a
similar vein).  Indeed, this is a point which is made ironically, --
but I contend that this is the tragic and instructive, self-effacing
Socratic irony, rather than its facile, mockingly self-absorbed
Romantic counterpart.

MV:
>	Generally, the idea that Rabelais is a Christian
>	writer basing on the last pages of Pantagruel
>	sounds like the medieval argument that Apuleius
>	was a Christian because at the end of the
>	Golden Ass the hero becomes a follower
>	of Isis cult. First of all, he becomes a cult
>	follower only at the end, and the book before
>	the end is dedicated to anything but religion.
>	And second, Isis cult is clearly no more
>	Christian than the Bottle cult, Thelem 
>	or anything else. Basically, the Bottle
>	cult of Rabelais is parallel to the
>	Hermeneutic cult of Egyptians, the same
>	as the Apuleius' hero was born again into.

Misha, don't just say these things, -- read the Febvre book.  It's a
good one.  And, no, I can't tell you whether he was a practicing
Catholic (I would guess not), but his #1 pal, Marc Bloch, was a Jew.
Doesn't that qualify him to make objective claims about Christianity?

>	Misha.
>		I want power -
>		Because it feels good
>		I want power -
>		I'll wash America with blood
>		I want power - 
>		a clear blue light in the skies
>		I want power - 
>		running through my veins and out of my eyes.
>					M. Gira

cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
" -- I shall speak bluntly, because life is short."