grgr4 Crutchfield or Crouchfield the westwardman (was Re: GR

[calbert at pop.tiac.net]

> 
> Crutchfield is a symbol of the American founding father -- an archetype,
> if not "archetypical" -- always heading west. One of Zane Grey's riders
> of the purple sage perhaps, he is "wood of a different grain and finish
> ... good-humoured, solid-set against the purple mountainslope, and
> looking half into the sun" (68.2), like the final sunset frames of a 30s
> Hollywood B-western. He is all free enterprise and the suits and
> trappings of democracy, nobility, honorable Old Testament intentions
> ("Half an Ark's better than none." 68.1) and benevolent force. Strong
> and silent, rough and ready, brave and dangerous ("peligroso"), with a
> wry sense of humour -- a cliche perhaps, but something we can relate to.
> He is cast as a child of Enlightenment rationalism and Puritan
> righteousness, a forger of 'progress' and 'civilisation'.


Everything is fine to here.



> But, in
> reality, he is a cruel and self-indulgent despot and sadist and sexual
> deviate, a dispassionate control freak like Pointsman

Oh boy, wrong turn.  As exceptionally sophisticated as your other 
critical comment generally are, when you begin with the politics, I 
wonder if you are sitting there wearing flared  cordoroys, held up by 
a 3 inch wide belt, and wallabies. Your passionate insistence on 
seeing in the US "the Great Satan" clouds your ability to appreciate 
the subtelty of what P is doing. Intending no offense to Doug, I'd 
say it is on par with his reading of the dodo episode, superficially 
applicable, but rendered almost clicheed by demand that it satisfy 
his outrage, rather than Pynchon's literary intent (yeah, I know, I'm 
shooting myself here).  There is something grossly unsatisfying about 
the current conclusions with respect to these episodes.

Crutchfield is a symbol of a spenglerian (Oswald Spengler, The 
Decline of the West see:http://ihr.org/jhr/v17/v17n2p10_Oliver.html)
 historical cycle. Spengler insisted that 
cultures exhibited organic pathologies, and defined certain stages 
through whcih most passed on their way to oblivion. The mirror to 
Cruthcfield is NOT Pointsman, but Blicero in Africa, and to a lesser 
extent, the Slothrops in the Berkshires. 
I have been anxious to locate another spengler head on the list, but 
have had no luck. SOmeone whose connection is less than 20 years old, 
perhaps even someone with a copy of DoW (which runs $80 for both 
volumes). There is no question in my mind that this book has spent 
some time in the grip of the Man. 

> "Understand, there was only one." Crutchfield is the Lone Ranger.
> Crutchfield is George Washington. Crutchfield is Coca Cola. Crutchfield
> is us. Our apathy.

Actually, Crutchfield is our naivetee. Apathy comes MUCH later.

love,
cfa