No Technophobe

[Greg Montalbano]

Andrew Dinn wrote:
    I am not so sure that Pynchon's belief, cautious as it is, is in
    the opportunity for "empowerment".  *Resistance* more like (or
    perhaps I mean *war*?).

Good point.  While other "paranoid" writers send a message of helplessness,
Pynchon, no grinning optimist, still describes landscapes & situations where
resistance is NOT futile.  Was it Pirate Prentice who told Roger that any
well-defined "they" system implies a "we" system?
    And of course, there is one of the most beautiful passages from
VINELAND:
   "He listened to me," Sasha declared, "that was the amazing fact.  He let
me do my thinking out loud, first man ever did THAT."  After a while her
thoughts started falling into place.  The injustices she had seen in the
streets and fields, so many, too many times gone unanswered -- she began to
see them more directly, not as world history or anything too theoretical,
but as humans, usually male, living here on the planet, often well within
reach, committing these crimes, major and petty, one by one against other
living humans.  Maybe we all had to submit to History, she figured, maybe
not -- but refusing to take shit from some named and specified source --
well, it might be a different story.