Pynchon - a product of his times redux

[Tom Stanton]

David Casseres wrote:
> > Jean sez
> >     ...M*A*S*H could never be made today.
> >     Why?  Well, let's see, you've got WAY too much boozing, pot-smoking
> >     and unclean living...it actually corrupts the
> >     god-given game of football into a stoned, cheating travesty!!
> 
> All quite true, and as a genyouwine '60's radical and hippie (yeah both)
> I can confirm that neither I nor anyone I knew would have remarked on
> what we would now find noticeably offensive in M.A.S.H...in those 
> respects the movie was no different from everything around it,
> and cleaner than a lot...(And we were all kindly disposed toward it 
> for its general disrespect for authority, its refusal to glamorize 
> war in any way, etc.)

Thanks Jean & David!! I saw "Mash" too & thought about posting
something on it relative to "writing within the prejudices of
his times" but didn't think the flame would be worth the candle.

> And mainly, number three, getting back to whatsisname at last, Andrew is
> 100% right in pointing out that there is absolutely nothing in Pynchon's
> actual text that can honestly be accused of racist, sexist, or homophobic
> intent, by commission or by omission.

Agreed. I never suggested Pynchon was homophobic or sexist. I do think
he used homosexual behavior and bondage and other forms of "deviant"
behavior to portray various forms of evil. 

> Pynchon uses the bigotry, casual or intense, of his characters as one
> part of the general machinery of his novels.  Does he denounce bigotry?
> No, he's not in the denunciation business much.  I think he assumes we
> know bigotry when we see it, and he certainly doesn't make it look
> attractive.

Uh, I think Pynchon is very much in the denunciation business. In
V and GR the Hereros are used very carefully to denounce colonialism
and the supposition of European cultural superiority. He denounces
Von Braun using Pokler & tells us later to "look high, not low."
As we go through GRGR I see lots of denouncements of science.

Not a bigoted author at all, & nothing racist in any of his texts.
But he did express the values of his generation, and they were not
nearly as PC as those in Vineland. And that's one reason why I love
GR and only like Vineland, and why I have both anticipation and
a certain fear of what Mason & Dixon might bring....