Nordhausen, Vietnam, & Pynchon

[George Haberberger]

At 10:00 AM 6/14/96 -0400, davemarc wrote:
>At 10:12 PM 6/13/96 -0400, George Haberberger wrote:
>>
>>I think Pynchon wrote GR as a metaphor for Vietnam (being concurrent with
>>it) in a similar vein that Heller wrote Catch 22, 
>
>I don't think Heller wrote Catch-22 (1962) as a metaphor for Vietnam.

My mistake, Korea perhaps?

>
>>and M.A.S.H being a
>>popular film.  WWII (and Korea) where distant enough to be crititcized,
>>without being caught in the curent politcal discussion. The whole Herero in
>>Sudwest Africa scenes, the third world colonies being the outhouse where the
>>imperialist man can really enjoy a shit, etc, seems to relate as much to
>>Germans in South Africa as to Americans in Vietnam.
>>
>>Had he directly attacked Vietnam, he probably would have never been
>>published. Even 22 years later, where is the great Vietnam War novel, the
>>subject has only been approached in film's, ranging from Heavy Metal concert
>>(Platoon) to We Win the Rematch (Rambo)?
>>
>As Steelhead (I believe) has pointed out, that's just not so.  Like him, I
>non-threateningly recommend reading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
>and Going After Cacciato.
>
>davemarc
>

I saw Steelhead's list, the only one I had heard of was "Armies of the
Night" (wasn't that about protesting the War at the Pentagon?), the other's
I had never heard of.

My high school (1980-1984, first reign of Ron) reading lists included such
anti-war tome's as "All Quiet on the Western Front", the Hemingway on the
Italian front in WWI, "Hiroshima", umm, an Elie Weisel that I forget the
title off, that Ambrose Bierce short story (Spy being hanged), but nothing
from the Vietnam era. What this means to me, besides temporary aphasia, is
that either "The Vietnam novel", which may be one of the one's on
Steelhead's list, still has not deeply permeated our culture, for whatever
reason you may think of, or I am more ignorant than I thought on literature.
Maybe a combination, but I think the war is still too recent and
controversial to be fully assimilated into our culture.

George