PYNCHON IN PULSE

[Steelhead]

>But you just noticed? American Culture began an inevitable decline after
>the publication of GR, with GR representing a transitional work at the
>peak, and probably uniquely dependent on the work of Gaddis (and everything
>else) which preceded it. In that sense, GR is the apogee of one culture's
>passage. GR feels "self-conscious" of its position there, and seems
>"self-aware" that it was helping to effect the end of the "polyphonic
>freedom" of the many cultural threads which theretofore had been fugally
>streaming until the "power loom" of TRP brought them together into the
>fabric of GR.

Hell, no. I don't buy into this Spenglarian nonsense about the inevitable
decline of American culture. If you want a good working out of that
wacko theory go back and read Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. Spenglar
leads right to Harold Bloom, William Bennett, and that glib proponent of
Catholic fascism Pat Buchanan. Sure, the nattering narrative voice of
GR is self-conscious, self-mocking...but it's also incredibly generous...
look at how it points outward into the vibrancy of contemporary culture
with its references to Ishmael Reed, MF Beal, Kirk Sale, Farina, et al. TRP
doesn't stamp GR as the "apogee of one culture's passing." At least, I
don't see it that way. I don't read TRP as a fatalist.

Steely