recorded history

[Andrew Dinn]

jeff severs writes:

> If the blank screen on the last page of GR is the "film we have not learned
> to see," is the "closeup of the face, a face we all know" what we learn to
> see? Is this learning true to that blankness, or is it what the "nation of
> starers" comforts itself (reach between your own cold legs) with seeing? I
> think Pynchon documents the profound effect of film on what we can and
> can't see as a 'human' image.

> I haven't even touched Vineland. Anyone?

Yeah, with knobs on. Everyone in Vineland is to a large degree
presented through a TV/Film/Comic book image. e.g. the brothers just
can't help being Baad, Takeshi has to take part in a Godzilla fantasy,
DL turns out to be a Ninjette, Prairie is a teen sex fetish, Isaiah is
a Kings Road meets Repo Man punk, Zoyd a lovable old fart, Hector is
Fred Flintstone hits The Streets of San Francisco, Blood and Vato are
Chip 'N Dale etc. Even the minor characters are cliches, Bush Vets,
Count Chocula et al. It's not just a satire of media presentation,
it's also a comment on how self-representation and reception of others
is conditioned by media dominance, particularly TV but that would be
to neglect the influence of e.g. youth media like comics, the various
musical ghettos etc. It's terribly ironic that such a negative message
is supplied c/o a man who can flesh out Porky Pig in the word, give a
verbal rendition of a Busby Berkeley routine, even deliver the Mutant
Ninja Teenage Comic Novel.


Andrew Dinn
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Geopolitical truth is like a hedgehog.  It doesn't know much, but it
knows one big thing.  And here is the power of geopolitics properly
applied.  It is robust in perspective, admittedly partial, always
incomplete, schematic even, and at times fanatic.  In the end it
unifies and clarifies, and imposes on complex reality its imperatives,
to plan and to act. -- General Golbery do Couto e Silva, 1957