Entre Nous

[DudiousMax at aol.com]

Yo Rob,
                 For some reason you have been in my thoughts these last few 
days.  I'd like to appeal to the angel of your better nature to bury old 
hatchets, for I'm feeling kindly disposed toward you today.  If I have been 
unkind to you, I ask you, publicly, to forgive me.
                 Furthermore, I'd like it if you were to read the OKCU Law 
Review issue dedicated to Pynchon and The Law.  It is their volume 24, number 
3, fall 1999.  You can get it by writing one Fiona Smith at their office 
(below) and requesting it.  She will mail it to you with an invoice for $10 
US.  All you have to do is go to a bank and have a draft made up for the 
amount and mail it to her.      At the price it is a great bargain, about 400 
pages of writing (ranging from passable to excellent) about Pynchon's notions 
of social responsibility, his emphasis on statecraft.  Without being a 
lawyer, or writing legalistically, TRP touches enough bases to generate 
twenty odd essays related to the law.  There are many writing in this 
anthology who believe his primary focus is legal.  I am particularly taken 
with Thoreen's essay because though he starts in a very different place, he 
winds up with conclusions very near to mine.  He also comments that the 
standard Pynchon literature either ignores, or glosses over as of minor 
importance, what he sees as central to Pynchon's work.  
                Thoreen's work is very scholarly and formal and does not 
chide the critical establishment for failing to see with a Magic Eye what he 
sees.  But he winds up in the same place I do.  I feel his approach may be 
more respectful to the other approaches, so I recommend him to you as less 
flippant than myself.  Once you read the OKCU Law Review, I think you'll see 
how one might say that politics (institutionalized into law) is central to 
Pynchon.  If Dante rests on Virgil (history), Beatrice (theology and 
spiritual love), and Vendetta (vengeance toward his real-life enemies who 
sentenced him to death); Pynchon seems to rest on hidden histories (per 
Thoreen, Dugdale, and my small contributions), his gnosticism which 
establishes evil at work at least in his oeuvre (per Eddins and Houman), and 
vendetta (vengeance toward those evil ones he sees as his ideological enemies 
who disenfranchised his extended family).  Hope you use this in the spirit in 
which it is offered.
                Just some grist for your mill, but I'll post it to the entire 
list so that others can avail themselves of the opportunity of a bargain in 
Pynchon studies.

                 Charles Hollander

                 Ms. Fiona Smith
                 Law Review
                 OKCU Law School
                 2501 North Blackwelder
                 Oklahoma City, OK
                 USA 73106-1493