Pynchon and ideology

[jbor]

>From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> 
> Indeed, I've always thought that, as well as Power's, the name "Tyrone"
> might have been taken for its relative popularity as an African-American
> boy's name, perhaps a generation or two after Pynchon was growing up but
> certainly as he is writing _GR_, which would make the full name itself both
> oxymoronic or paradoxical (or *subversive* -- Black "tyrone" Power!) as well
> as, at the symbolic level, mutually inclusive of both the Puritan and
> African-American American heritage.

... Which would tie in quite nicely also with "Red" Malcolm X, and the
playing of that there 'Cherokee' (63.23) in the Roseland Ballroom ... not to
mention the recommendation of Ishmael Reed which Pynchon interpolates into
his own narrative (588.5) ...

Re. "globalisation" and Pynchon

I think that Pynchon's fictions illustrate the complicity of corporations,
governments (*and* the resident priest-castes and intelligentsia), *and*
their workers/citizens, in global ventures such as war, colonisation, and
other more insidious forms of imperialism, conquest and oppression. This
seems pretty self-evident in the texts: cf. Stencil, Oed, the members of the
Counterforce, Zoyd, Chas and Jer etc.

Certainly, his work comprises a staunch critique of the Western "System",
which would include the ideology of capitalism, its practices, and its
current propensity for global acquisition. I'm not so sure that he proposes
any practical alternative/s, or that his vision for the future is a
utopianist one, or indeed that his work valorises Socialist ideology or a
particular style (or styles) of non-democratic government, however.

Personally speaking, if setting up a Nike factory and putting in McDonalds
franchises in Burkina Faso or Shaanxi province is going to help feed and
house the starving populations there then I'm all for it, no matter how many
placard-wavers or armchair "experts" it might offend.

I'd also like to float the idea of an _M&D_ group read after the end of the
current _V._ read and a reasonable break.

best