Pynchon and the Status Quo

[Andrew Clarke Walser]

	On Tuesday, 25 February 1997, I wrote:

 	What mythologies, I wonder, does Pynchon prop up?  Why have
 literary Americans, for instance, so readily elevated him to the status of
 Great Author?

	Let me rephrase myself.
	If some works of aesthetic distinction survive, and others vanish,
surely those that last do so, in part, because they conform to one
dominant ideology or another.  Obviously, Pynchon has established his
credentials as a critic:  we personify the powers he questions as Them.
But what Yes (in a whisper) balances his No In Thunder?  I assume he would
not enjoy the acceptance he does -- from universities to popular culture
-- if he did not prop up something.

				Andrew Walser
			University of Illinois-Chicago

P.S. to Paul:  Regarding capitalism, I did not -- in fact -- exclude
		present company.  I grub money as much as the next
		person, and I rather like the things it buys.