Nordhausen, Vietnam, & Pynchon

[Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt]

Steely:

> A similar question can be asked about Vietnam. Where is it in Pynchon? Why
> didn't America's greatest writer--and one of the leading voices of the
> counterculture--use his enormous talents to speak out against the war?
> Is it all a complex enthymeme, as Chuck Hollander suggests, lurking there
> under the surface of the text, and gaining more force and power through
> its absence? Perhaps, but that's not entirely satisfying to me. Any ideas?

I've come across various critics accusing TRP of ethical relativism, 
eg. for implying that Abraham's 'invention' of monotheism is on the 
same logical 'timeline' as the Holocaust, etc etc. 
I tend to think that Pynchon's awareness of "the man's office in our 
heads" accounts for his, er, sceptic? ambivalent? attitude towards the 
counterforce / counterculture. Also, that some things are simply too 
obvious for America's greatest writer to spell out - he doesn't quite 
stoop to that level, as Steely pointed out recently. 

hg
hag at iafrica.com