CIA

[wood jim]

So, well, again, despite the disclaimer that
follows--which is fairly dependent on knowledge of the
U.S. Agency for any humor and/or interest it might
otherwise hold here anyway--"you" are going to have to
go through some pretty elaborate acrobatics, 

No, I know enough about the CIA to know it is not in
the  book. I'm not an expert on the CIA. However, I
know enough about the CIA and more importantly, I have
read CL49 many times.  The elaborate acrobatics are
indispensable only if you want to argue that the CIA
is in the  book when it is not. The reason I am
insisting on this, is not because I disagree so much
with the conclusions one can arrive at by such a
reading, although I do ultimately disagree with
Hollander, but because  if the CIA/JFK,
Rockerfeller/Rothschild/Morgan/Pynchon &Co is in the
book, of course they are not, but if they were, and if
by being there, subtextually, on the underside of the
tapastry, they not only inform, but as Hollander
claims, motivate the author to write political satire
than Pynchon's politics is not worthy. Moreover, if
these are what P writes about, he can't also be
writing 
about what most critics agree he is focused on. 


or be
just plain not up on your "current"--in the sense of,
the last half century--events, not to read "CIA" =
"Central Intelligence Agency," no matter how
fleetingly, there.  And words, phrases, acronyms and
abbreviations, even, trailing their histories along
with them, well, that trace will linger nonetheless
...

Right, but the trace, the response to a pun or a joke
or play on words, trivial or political, needs to be,
once we are talking about the text and what the author
has put there, and not merely our initial response to
it, needs to be explained within the resonable
parameters proscribed by the text. There is no doubt
that going out of the text, intertextual reading and
so on, is valuable, but it has limits, if and when a
reader credits the outside the text reading or
inter-textual to the author. 

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