Pynchon and Politics

[Circ Staff]

	I question the notion -- advanced by Aaron, I think -- that one 
can divide artists into Dominant and Non-Dominant, as if they were genes 
or people fond of bondage.
	Where would Plato fit into such a scheme?  He qualifies as one of 
those infamous Dead White European Males, but his mentor did, after all, 
get put to death by the state.
	What about Dickens or Jorge Luis Borges?  V. S. Naipaul?  Derek
Walcott?  Thomas Pynchon?  All of these writers relate to the politics of
their time in ways far more complex than advocacy or apology -- even we on
the List do, when we put our minds to it. 

				Andrew Walser
				University of Illinois-Chicago