Cooler than thou

[Steven Maas (CUTR)]

On Tue, 4 Mar 1997 Andrew Dinn wrote:
> It has to do with Thomas Pynchon - who tries to explain to his readers
> through example, metaphor and parable: that the evil of the Holocaust
> was not the work of a small group of people or even a large group of
> people, but arose because of the way that societies tend towards an
> organisation along lines which promote evil; that there is something
> inherent in people that militates such an alignment of forces; that
> this evil is called Death; that we may all attain to brief,
> grace-filled moments of joy when we can temporarily escape from the
> tyranny of Death; or that we may succumb to despair and arrive early
> at Death's door while still in the midst of life.

This is the most eloquent concise summation of Pynchon that I've seen.  I
have only one small quibble--I would maybe replace Death as the evil with
Inanimateness, or Death-in-Life. 

	Steve Maas