Newt, Systems, etc......

[Jan KLIMKOWSKI]

At last, the P-List blazes.....

For what it's worth, I would like to suggest that at the root of all this is 
a disagreement as to nothing less than, shock, horror, THE REAL WORLD 
CONSEQUENCES OF CONTEMPORARY LITCRIT.

I am very grateful to Pynchon academics for providing me with a greater 
understanding of Pynchon's artistic techniques, the quality and originality 
of his historical references, his erudition.  To everyone from McHale to 
Hite to Tololyan (and the list really is endless) - a great bit THANK YOU.

But.............

When I first read Gravity's Rainbow - during an insomniac four days back in 
my late teens - I read the work of a revolutionary poet - in style, form and 
politics.  A dozen cover-to-cover reads later (two of them backwards), and I 
have seen nothing to challenge this opinion.

Pynchon has tremendous fun with Systems, including the System that is the 
Counterforce, but that doesn't mean that he's neutral.  As Jeffrey says, 
these "opposing forces" are NOT equal, that's one of Their lies.

I have read Bonnie's ideas with fascination and gratitude.  It is courageous 
to post ideas in the making to a group of peers and contemporaries, and I 
for one very much hope that the P-list will continue to be a place where new 
approaches and aspects of TRP can be discussed. There are so many people 
here with so much to contribute.   I think Bonnie has suffered though in 
part because for those of us for whom Pynchon is, first and foremost, a poet 
of revolution, many of the tenets of contemporary litcrit have worrying 
consequences.

I have difficulty here in even finding a language to talk about Thomas 
Pynchon, the man, who wrote 760 pages during the years of grease and 
passage, and his political intentions, and not sliding into the hole of 
unrealiable unrealiable narrators and deathbirthdeath of the author 
miasmas....

Thomas Pynchon is political.  It isn't a Resistance, it's a War.  But 
Pynchon is also an unbelievably gifted artist, and a very sophisticated 
thinker.

Best wishes to all

jan


PS Newt's intellectual roots are complex, and he has a curious range of fans 
out there, including many from the libertarian wing of 60s American 
hippiedom...