V.V. (14) McLintic's "bad week" at the V-Note

[jbor]

     [ ... ] some of the colleges were let out and the place had been
    crowded with these types who like to talk to each other a lot. Every
    now and again, they'd invite him over to a table between sets [ ... ]
    Some of them would go through the old Northern liberal routine: look
    at me, I'll sit with anybody. Either that or they would say: "Hey fella,
    how about Night Train?" Yes bwana. Yazzuh, boss. Dis darkey, ol' Uncle
    McLintic, he play you de finest Night Train you evah did hear. An after
    dat set he gwine take dis ol' alto an' shove it up yo' white Ivy League
    ass. (280-1)

Coming immediately after the depictions of European racism directed towards
native Africans in the early decades of the century this is quite a
significant passage and statement, and Pynchon's strong attachment to the
Civil Rights movement (cf. the Watts article), and his ongoing contempt for
the condescension and arrogance of mainstream American WASP attitudes should
not be deemphasised. There are indeed reasons why certain things get written
at certain times, and placed in certain juxtapositions.

Pynchon seems to be drawing on, if not indeed renouncing, his own college
background in these sequences (cf Slothrop at the Roseland Ballroom in
_GR_). The nameless college "types" are a different set to the members of
the Whole Sick Crew, and I get the impression that Pynchon's sympathies
reside more with the latter rather than the former group.

best