VV the WSC (Re: Benny's job

[jbor]

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>From: <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
>

> Your definitions of "centre" and "otherness" are only Bobs
> floating on the surface. Perhaps we can dive deeper.

Or shallower. _M&D_. George Washington and his black Jewish jester.

Talk about dynamiting a stream! Pynchon not interested in "otherness" as it
relates to U.S. history and culture! Pishtosh!

But in terms of the WSC in Pynchon's first novel, where the message was
perhaps somewhat subtler, I'm struck by the fact that the members of the
crew are not identified by their ethnicities -- labelled as Puerto Rican or
Jewish or African-American -- either amongst themselves or by a/the
narrator. Fu, for example; Raoul; Melvin; or Paola once she has become a
roommate and Crew member. Even Rachel and Esther. The discourse of the Crew
members is explicitly post-colonial in this respect -- both unusual and
significant for the time I would say -- and the sub-cultural alignment thus
depicted by Pynchon is one which trancends ethnic (and, indeed, other)
boundaries (in contrast to the Puerto Rican kids, Rachel's background etc).

It's a nuance or theme which is very familiar in the fiction of J.M. Coetzee
as well, but I think Pynchon prolly should get at least some of the credit
for it.

best