Lefties leap in (was ...Pseudo-Radical Jargonism)

[Mike Weaver]

Derek wrote
>Pynchon-criticism of this sort to me
>seems to be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing - exactly the problem
>with the intellectual left that Pynchon seems to be problematizing.

As Doug has pointed out, TRP's sympathies are very visible.  He's an 
anti-capitalist radical, with great sympathy for the U.S. leftist tradition,  
Vineland alone makes that exceedingly clear.  The question of TRP's 
fundamental philosophic reasoning is another matter, as we have shown, 
even to the point of acrimony, many times.  There is too much possibility 
of selective reading to say for certain. Politically that's not the case.  

Derek is correct to a degree or three, but it's the problems of effective
action 
from the left that is an area with which TP is often concerned,   and from a 
sympathetic not a cynical angle.


>I think Meg's reading (to paraphrase: "Frenesi sucks") is on target,
>and to read too much more into it misses the real message.  

The necessary depth of analysis, beyond which it becomes a frivolous 
pastime, rather depends on the desired outcome.  Whether our wish is to
understand the way he sees it or to engage with his analysis for active 
political reasons, I think most of us would like to take a more detailed look
at the ways TRP has made Frenesi who (or how) she is.  If there but for 
fortune... what's fortune?  That's my idea of "the real message".  What's
yours?


tuodna

Mike