Paranoia......

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

I often make disclaimers about my beliefs regarding speaking of the 
writer's "intention."  I know it's unpopular, but I really believe that 
you cannot deny a felt sense about what writer's mean to imply or say 
outright relative to an era, a cultural phenomenon, a War.  This does not 
mean that such references are closed to other meanings/interpretations.  
If anything, literature, as a dissipative structure, can carry a lot of 
information; deconstructing and evolving is the business of dynamic 
systems, systems that include the reader as a source of information.  So, 
if I believe that Pynchon's reference to the Zone intones WWII, or any 
other thing--a dream, a race, Roman gladiators, whatever--it holds, and 
possible contributes to that ethereal felt sense of the text.  Is someone 
in my dream?  Is somebody forcing me to act or feel in a particular way?  
We do respond to turbulences in the cultural matrix of 
thought/expression/dream, etc.  Oh, but I do carry on.

Bonnie