Meshugginah posts, and other things sundry

[Doug Millison]

At 2:22 PM 7/5/97, Vaska wrote:
>One last comment: how many of the other people on the list have read
>Pynchon's article on Watts?  It came out in the LA Times, some time in 196?,
>I think.

The piece on Watts is great -- in a previous post, I used it as an example
of some of the good, nuanced work that gets published under the
"journalism" label.

>Compare it to _M&D_ and then let's
>talk about what's happened to Pynchon's human and political vision in the
>meantime.

I don't see that his vision has mellowed much at all, if that's what you're
suggesting (and if you're not suggesting that, my mistake) -- he seems just
as outraged as ever at colonial imperial exploitation in M & D (cf. the
treatment of the Indians; or his complex portrayal of Austra and her
interactions with Mason and Dixon and the Vrooms in Cape Town), for
example, as he did at the white colonial Europeans hunkering down to enjoy
the smell of their shit in South Africa and elsewhere as he describes in
GR. And in M&D he certainly seems to treat the budding American
revolutionaries with esteem, even respect.

Cordially,
Doug


D O U G  M I L L I S O N ||||||||||||| millison at online-journalist.com