V.V. (13) "And they heard a Bondel one night ... " 277.17

[Doug Millison]

Dave is quite right to point to Pynchon's modesty, which we see developed to
a high degree in the Slow Learner intro, and at play in Pynchon's other
writings outside his fictional canon.

That modesty may not be as straightforward as it might appear, however -- at
least one P-lister and respected Pynchon critic (no, "jbor", not Hollander,
but another Pynchon Notes contributor) has suggested the SL intro might be
something of a put-on, which may in fact be the case when it is read against
the sentiments Pynchon expressed in letters from the early '60s to his
literary agent in which he staked out some major literary ambitions for his
works in progress at that time; or maybe Pynchon lost a bit of his youthful
brashness over in the years between those youthful letters and the SL intro.
Pynchon is certainly a textual game player, perhaps not least when he speaks
in his own voice and writes under his own byline in a non-fiction mode --
another reason to relax a bit, I think, and be a bit less agressive in
stating what any particular element of system of elements might or might not
mean in one of his fictions.

"jbor" has, on the many occasions in his repeated references to the Hirsch
letter, seemed to want to attribute some sort of insensitivity to the Herero
plight on the part of Pynchon, a rhetorical move that I think is quite
destructive to the spirit of social justice that pervades Pynchon's work,
and which, I also believe, represents a serious misreading of Pynchon's
letter. Coming from a P-list participant who has consistently sought to
exculpate the perpetrators of the genocides that Pynchon has so vividly
portrayed -- in Africa, in Europe during WWII -- it's not surprising, but it
certainly stands on its head the political sympathies that stand out quite
clearly in Pynchon's work, and have been noted as such by countless critics.
Always room for a contrarian, I suppose.

"jbor":
Are you seriously trying to attribute those comments in the first paragraph
of the Hirsch letter to "modesty"! (Let alone the rest of what Pynchon sez
in the letter!)