Vitenam and Pynchon - Wrong Question?

[Andrew Dinn]

Mr Craig Clark writes:

> 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... :-)

That's an excellent observation (refreshingly paranoid, to boot) and
segues neatly into my contribution to the Vietnam literature thread. I
just reread JM Coetzee's `The Vietnam Project', a short story from
1972 republished in 1983 in the UK under the title Dusklands alongside
a tale of a putative? Dutch ancestor, Jacobus Coetzee Janszoon, as a
companion piece.

The protagonist in `The Vietnam Project' is a mythographer, Eugene
Dawn (a name for which he, quite rightly, apologizes in the opening
line), charged with advising the US military on psi ops. The story
displays precisely Craig's point - that the real war went on (is still
going on) in the US. Dawn never sets foot - never needs to - in
Vietnam. It's brilliant and as near to Pynchon as anything I have ever
read.  The other story is also excellent. I'll try to furnish some
quotes tomorrow.

Anyone know more about Coetzee's work (hag presumably must). He has
three other novels which I have not yet read but am placing at the top
of the pile.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
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To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.