meat

[Dave Monroe]

By the way, taking up a la Charles Hollander (though I
will note, I have long taken this for granted myself,
well before Hollander's paper was ever published) the
JFK assassination as a context for The Crying of Lot
49, Metzger = RFK?  A lawyer, executor of Pierce
Inverarity's (= JFK?) legacy, but, also, a "butcher,"
note the pursuit of the Vietnam war under both JFK and
LBJ, a "butchery" which RFK, had he lived, had he been
elected, would no doubt had pursued as well. 
According to what's leaked out of that stash of
Pynchonalia at the University of Texas, the JFK
assassination had "profound effects" on TRP ...

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/newsletters/newsletterspr01/pynchon2.html

... but one might well conjecture--okay, I will
conjecture--that there are ambivalences, problematics
in TCOL49 which are ambivalences about,
problematizations of, America, its slain president,
its policies, its history, its "legacy" and our
"inheritance" thereof.  "Silent Tristero" becomes an
"Empire," a "Counterforce" spoeksman is interviewed in
the New York Times.  Opps, gotta run, but will be
back, on this as well as other matters ...


--- Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> But Grant continues, on his ownsome ...
> 
> "The chain of associations forged by these connected
> observations makes for an interesting ambiguity in
> our attitude toward Metzger.  His name links him by
> analogy to competitors of the Thurn and Taxis
> organization, and hence to the Tristero, a fact that
> accords well with Watson's thesis, which maintains
> that through the Tristero Oedipa comes to the brink
> of self-discovery, after being rescued by Metzger
> from her 'comfortable and complacent' suburban life
> (61).
> 
> Metzger, however, is Pierce Inverarity's legal
> representative and thus is closely associated with
> the main current of American capitalism--the
> equivalent of the monopolistic Thurn and Taxis
> dynasty.  This latter suggestion has ties to the
> speculation raised by the discovery that W.A.S.T.E.
> stands fo "We Await Silent Tristero's Empire," and
> anticipation when the Tristero itself will take over
> the monopolistic functions of the state system
> (169)." (Grant, Companion, pp. 11-2)
> 
> "Watson's thesis" can presumably be found in ...
> 
> Watson, Robert N. "Who Bids for Tristero? The
>    Conversion of Pynchon's Oedipa Maas."  Southern
>    Humanities Review 17 (Winter 1983): 59-75.

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