Vitenam and Pynchon - Wrong Question?

[Mr Craig Clark]

At 09:43 PM 6/11/96 -0700, Steelhead wrote:

 > 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?

and later

 > But where is ...[Vietnam]... in _Vineland_? Certainly it would have been safe to
 > broach the war and its aftermath then, if, in fact, safety was ever a concern,
 > which I don't believe it was.

Surely, if the "Germans-and-Japs" version of the Second World War wasn't the real
war (as Mr Information suggests to Skippy in _Gravity's Rainbow_), then the
"Gooks-and-Slopes" version of the Vietnam War isn't the real war either. The real
war indeed is carried out not against a foreign country but against those in one's own
country who do not believe in their commanding officers (I'm quoting from
memory here): that is to say, against those who rebel against the hegemony.
_Vineland_shows the real war is still in progress, and will not be over until They
have subjugated everyone to Their way of seeing the world. To ask where the
"gooks-and-slopes" version of the Vietnam war is in Pynchon is to ask the wrong
question - and then They don't have to worry about the answers... :-)

Craig
Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"