Will's Students- Adam

[Paul Mackin]

I'm at a distinct disadvantage trying to critique
Adam's essay having never read a single word of
Vollmann. Now I think I would like at long last to
dip into him a little.

I was puzzled by a couple of ideas or positions that
seemed to run throughout. It sounded like the two
opposing sides were more or less equal in moral
standing. That the tension between them was somehow
symetrical. Maybe this is Vollmann. Is he such a
captivating writer he can make his readers partially
identify with skinheads? Quite a feat I would say.

But the above having been said the Korean faction
evidently was well represented in the racism department
as well.

Also I was a bit surprised that you seem to have held out
hope that the conflicts described could be resolved. Isn't
this a little unrealistic? It's not just a matter of
East is East and West is West. Vollmann for some reason
of his own has tossed in not the average scrutable West
but very  possibly the Worst of the West to end on
an alliterative note.

Hope this helps. Enjoyed reading your report.

				P.

----------
From: 	WillL at fieldschool.com[SMTP:WillL at fieldschool.com]
Sent: 	Thursday, May 08, 1997 9:28 PM
To: 	pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: 	Will's Students- Adam

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

Will's Students: Adam

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 first student is Adam Rick , writing about William Vollmann

**************

Will Layman's 11th Grade Literature Class
"The Blue Wallet" by William T. Vollmann
Adam Rick
[all italics and smallcaps have been retained in the quotations]


     This selection from Vollmann's The Rainbow Stories is not demonstrative of
the typical and clear-cut dramatic conflict between two sides: blacks versus
whites, Dorothy and her companions versus the Wicked Witch of the West, Montagus
versus Capulets, etc. This story has a twist on that old hat theme -- the
narrator. Bill must deal with neo-Nazi friends who feel racial hatred against
his Korean girlfriend, Jenny. On the other hand, Jenny's Korean social circle
does not approve of her relationship with the culturally-distanced Bill, and
certainly fears his link to the skinheads. How can the seemingly neutral Bill
manage to keep both these two "enemies" close to him, meanwhile avoiding their
potentially destructive confrontation?

     Although Bill manages to preserve this delicate balance throughout the
story, it seems quite unlikely that the health in his relationships
(primarily those with Jenny and the skinhead Bootwoman Marisa) could last
much beyond his narration's finale. Marisa is not conceding in her
overwhelming racism; in Part 2 of the story wherein she fights a "fucking
fat woman", she expresses disdain for the overweight as well as her belief
in the supremacy of the white race. Vollmann's crude writing emphasizes
such beliefs of Marisa's: The "nigger-fucking whore" is "too fuckin' fat
for a white man to fuck [her] lousy ass!" So, when at the end of the story
Marisa stares "expressionlessly into Jenny's face, and says cooly," one
could easily expect some horrible racial slur to flow off her tongue. She
responds to Jenny's longing to see Bill dance with only an assurance that
she never will. This could be construed to imply many different things:
Does Marisa feel that Bill _as a white_ is destined to separate from Jenny?
Is she plotting to murder Jenny, as Bill theorizes four pages earlier in
Part 11? Will she seduce Bill, and consequently rob Jenny of her man.
(Reference to sign in doorway at the party where this confrontation occurs:
"S.F. Bootwomen - They'll rob you of your money, your pride AND your man!"
This motto embodies Jenny's fears of the bootwomen: that they took her
wallet, dis her culture, and threaten her relationship.)

     If Bill were to persevere in his relationship with Jenny, would she be apt
to keep it? Jenny hasn't told her family that she dates a white guy.
Jenny's brother Richard is harshly criticized in the Korean circle because
"he was seeing a Korean-American girl who had Caucasian ways." Her other
brother Adam tells her that he is very disappointed about her (white)
boyfriend. Jenny sticks up for Bill, particularly with Adam=97she can't
understand why he "doesn't feel good" about Bill "just because of
appearance." Nevertheless, Bill comments in regard to Jenny's clam-
scrubbing that "in Jenny's world, as in Marisa's, every alien must be
sterilized." Indicative of Jenny's racism is her quick conclusion that
Marisa stole her credit card and took it shopping at Macy's: this is simply
not part of a skinhead's life. Even Bill's roommate Martin thinks that the
skinheads took Jenny's wallet, and the accuracy of her suspicions about
their extreme racism is confirmed by Bill's narration. But, are the
skinheads the only "bad guys" in this story?  Don't the Koreans exhibit an
equally awful racism?

     I would like to believe that Bill's two loves are reconciliable, but
Vollmann's indications against this possibility abound. If this were a
happily-ending "Chekhovian story, or a tale from Maupassant," as Bill
speculates, the wallet would be found and relations would cool. If it were
really a happily-ending commentary on life in these United States, (San
Francisco, to be exact), "this revulsion that the colors of the rainbow
feel for each other" would cease to exist. Bill could concurrently date a
Korean and party with skinheads. The strong-felt prejudices apparently
aren't eliminated by the end of this story, but I wonder if Bill could
better juggle the elements of this relationship conflict.