Life v. Art (was Re: Drugs in Pynchon's fiction

[Paul Mackin]

Everyone is providing a piece to the puzzle. The little piece
I hold is only this--upon reading GR in 1973, thoughts of the war
years, which I had completely shut out of consciousness for a couple of
decades, thrust themselves back into my brain with a force I can only call
uncanny. That's all I meant by GR being ABOUT WWII.

Don't know how P did it. Suspect he immersed himself in all the popular
culture of the time he could lay his hands on and just breathed it all in.

			P.

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Spencer Thiel wrote:

> At 3:55 PM +0100 10/28/99, you wrote:
> 
> 
> >Isn't it also possible that P's conjuration of WWII resounds with us
> >_because_ he
> >wasn't there and gains his experience of the actuality of the war in the
> >same way
> >as (most of) us have: through films, books, stories, TV etc. Perhaps, the
> >idea that
> >there is a close correlation between specifically the war images and the
> >actual
> >war might seem untrue to anyone who was there (wherever _there_ was). Anyone
> >have
> >real experiences?
> 
> Reminds me of the comments that my Grandfather made after seeing _Saving
> Private Ryan_.  He thought that the movie sucked and was quite discouraged
> that the media was portraying it as a realistic WWII experience.  He said
> that most of his time in Europe was spent buried in the snow, freezing
> cold, seeing little to no action -- even though he was in some of the
> 'heaviest' action in The Battle of the Bulge.  He was also discouraged with
> the basic premise of SPR -- that the army would go out of their way pull
> anyone out of the war for any reason.  He didn't land at Normandy, but his
> thoughts about it were that there was only a very small group of soldiers
> that experienced the heavy onslaught portrayed in the film.  He said that
> most soldiers who landed there were expecting to see heavy action, but
> instead stormed the beach to find nothing.
> 
> I suppose that my whole point is that realistic WWII experiences would
> probably make horrible books and even worse movies.  Our shared experiences
> of WWII are clouded by Hollywood's interpretation of what happened.  Not
> that there is anything wrong with writing fictional accounts of the war, as
> long as they don't go around masquerading as reality.
> 
> 
> -
> st.
> -
>