Rational

[Henry Musikar]

We know that TRP is a highly intelligent writer, so his romantic side 
is self-aware/suspect, as it is for many others (hello DCNY), but 
it's there, especially in passages like this one. Thanks for the 
reminder.

On 23 Oct 96 at 11:52, Greg Montalbano wrote:

> Date:          Wed, 23 Oct 96 11:52:13 PDT
> From:          Greg Montalbano <OPSGMM at uccvma.ucop.edu>
> Subject:       Hippie-Dippy?
> To:            pynchon-l at waste.org

> As to the question whether the line "They are in love; fuck the
> War." is a "hippie-dippy" lapse -- some further light may be shed by
> Roger's internal musings described on the last page of Section One
> (pg 177 Viking Compass):
>  ______
>     If the rockets don't get her there's still her lieutenant. 
>     Damned
> Beaver/Jeremy *is* the War, he is every assertion the fucking War
> has ever made -- that we are meant for work and government, for
> austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the
> spirit, the senses and the other second-class trivia that are found
> among the idle and mindless hours of the day .... Damn them, they
> are wrong.  They are insane.  Jeremy will take her like the Angel
> itself, in his joyless weasel-worded come-along, and Roger will be
> forgotten, an amusing maniac, but with no place in the rationalized
> power- ritual that will be the coming peace.... _______
> 
> If this attitude could be described as hippie-dippy (and I'm not
> 100% convinced that it couldn't), then perhaps some of us might
> usefully rethink what the so-called "hippie" view really was. *****
> Also, off the topic, further along in the same passage:
> 
>       You go from dream to dream inside me.  You have passage to my
>       last
> shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you've found life.  I'm
> no longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are
> "yours" and which are "mine".  It's past sorting out.  We're both
> being someone new now, someone incredible ....
>       His act of faith.
> 
> This passage struck me as very un-characteristic of the rest of
> TRP's writing;  but, if you've ever been in love & immersed in
> "youthful folly time", still rather compelling... (which, I guess,
> shows that *I* have).
> 
> Sorry to be reading ahead; but I've never been able to read this
> book slowly.
> 

Keep Cool, but care. -- TRP
http://www.nicom.com/~gravity