Evil R Us

[Fakhereddine Berrada]

It is refreshing to see Pynchon's work (and I mean all his work) 
appreciated from this perspective. Pynchon's critique of power and his 
indictment of systems of subjection are exactly targeting WESTERN power 
and its different avatars. Compare his reference to 'The Man' with that 
of 'The Man' in "A Journey into the Mind of Watts". That's why it's not 
too far-fetched to say that Pynchon's writing falls within the tradition of 
post-colonial writing.

On Thu, 6 Mar 1997 LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU wrote:

> 
> Murthy comments:
> "The idea that all human groups are                    
> inherently evil is a pernicious myth propagated by us to make ourselves
> look normal, just like the idea that all human life is "nasty, brutish
> and short". It's not human nature that's screwed up, it's our culture
> and it's not universal."
> 
> 
> To turn back to Pynchon, look at the Hereros as emblematic of the problem.
> If white Europeans and their descendents are, as Susan Sontag once put it,
> "the cancer of history," there is the suggestion that this form of cancer
> (unlike the real one) is communicable.  The Schwarzkommando become, at least,
> "sold on suicide" in part from the devestation of their culture, in part from
> the infection of European order.
> 
> It's very clear that P. targets white, European culture as the main culprit
> of history.  It's somewhat less clear that he sees that guilt as an exclusive
> property.  When he says, "The Man has a branch office in each of our brains
> [. . . ] whose mission is Bad Shit,"  that "our" implies a white readership
> but suggests a larger group.
> 
> Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
>