Will's Students- Chris

[Paul Mackin]

You find the story "disturbing on a fundamental level."
This could be good or bad. Pynchon might well be
overjoyed knowing he was shaking up or bothering
his readers. But you seem to be implying some lack in
the story. You say the story does not confront racism
directly. But should it?  Does it possibly confront
racism obliquely, using a child's eye viewpoint to
achieve the desired effect. 

Since Will's introduction mentions binary as opposed
to graduated thinking, I'm compelled to take notice of
your use of the word "hate", which seems very extreme
to me. Do the boys hate parents and adults in general,
or do they merely disapprove or them? Do they hate
racism, or are they mainly perplexed by it?

You mentioned racial stereotyping, which everybody
agrees is generally to be avoided. But is Pynchon's
use of this form of thinking possibly in the service
of some higher purpose? Is it at all like the racial
stereotyping Grover finds in the Tom Swift stories,
or quite different?

I would love to see you do a rewrite that attempts
to answer some of my questions.

			P.

----------
From: 	WillL at fieldschool.com[SMTP:WillL at fieldschool.com]
Sent: 	Thursday, May 08, 1997 9:38 PM
To: 	pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: 	Will's Students- Chris



Date	5/8/97
Subject	Will's Students- Chris
>From	WillL
To	Pynchon List

Will's Students: Chris

Thanks again to the wonderful Pynchon List for indulging my students during this
busy time on the list (too busy, if you ask me -- I can barely read half the
list messages, much less respond).  I have asked my students to write about four
paragraphs or so about one of three stories:  TRP's "The Secret Integration,"
William Vollmann's "The Blue Wallet" (from THE RAINBOW STORIES) or James
Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues."  They will then be required to post responses to at
least three of the comments they receive from the List.

Please note that these posts are unedited by me.  Also, you should know that the
students' "central texts" this year have been THE WIZARD OF OZ (the movie), THE
SCARLET LETTER, HUCK FINN, Whitman's "Song of Myself," and THEIR EYES WERE
WATCHING GOD.  When reading THE SCARLET LETTER, they read a one page excerpt
from GRAVITY'S RAINBOW regarding heretical Puritan William Slothrop.  They are
steeped in the idea of Preterite and Elect as a metaphor for various dichotomies
in American society, as well as the idea that such dichotomies are often false
constructions.  This project in the culmination of the THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING
GOD unit, which has dealt with gender and race inequities depicted in American
Literature.

Again, we welcome your critiques, to be addressed directly to the students.

My next student is Chris Gill (a guy), writing about Pynchon.


********

Is it just me, or is Pynchon's _The Secret Integration_ disturbing on a
fundamental level?

	The story, after all, deals with racism (but manages not to
directly confront it). The boys hate their parents, and all adults, as an
article of faith. They hate racism too, but cound't that just be guilt by
association? Their parents like racism, they hate their parents, therefore
they hate racism. In a frightening way, the gut-level hate these children
have of their parents is much the same as the gut-level hate their parents
have of blacks.

	And what's the deal with Carl? Let's take McAfee, the real one.
He's a drunk, vagrant, and I think to some degree a liar. Does this say
something about Pynchon's stereotypes, or about the children's? And what
are the implicaitons that they base a ficticious black kid on him (at
least take the name, which is worth something) And what about the fake
Carl anything? Isn't he the great unkown quantity? We know almost nothing
about him, much like the way the parent's don't know much about the black
families. In the end, Carl leaves. Does this mean that the children have
become racist, or simply that they've grown beyond the need for a
childhood imaginary friend?