Benny's Job ("kook"

[Dave Monroe]

... well, out of town the past couple of days, just catching up, but
I'll check out that link you posted again, Terrance.  Couldn't connect
when the Digest came through, and I assumed you were ribbing me by
referring to the Sandinista/Contra/Reagan years.  But, hey, if 1950s
Nicaragua is an even better fit, well, as always, the more, the
merrier.  But I certainly wouldn't discount Vietnam, as the possibility
and dangers of escalating U.S. involvement certainly would have seemed
on the horizon for astute observers ca. the writing/publication (1963)
of V. no?

Again (...), am not claiming any actual Pynchonian prescience in re:
"Operation Igloo White," which, again, was only the culmination in
Vietnam of the "intelligence" and technology driven early Cold War
military operations are, indeed, the immediate object of parody here
(that is, Chapter V [!] of V.), but such parodies cannot help, at that
reception end, but being articulated with the events of the day
(Vietnam, Nicaragua), articulations that Charles Hollander's
unfortunately uncollected ouevre traces out, and right back to Pynchon's

own context and possible, probable concerns.  But even in popular
culture ...

Hm ... in another but not altogether unrelated, see the very excellent
...

Greene, Eric.  Planet of the Apes as American Myth: Race and
    Politics in the Films and Television Series.  Jefferson, NC:
    McFarland, 1996.

... published in paperback as ...

Greene, Eric.  Planet of the Apes as American Myth: Race, Politics
    and Popular Culture.  Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1998.

... and I'm just starting in on, most recently ...

Black, Jeremy.  The Politics of James Bond: From Fleming's Novels
    to the Big Screen.  Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.

... and see also ...

Bennett, Tony and Janet Woollacott, eds.  Bond and Beyond:
    The Political Career of a Popular Hero.  New York: Routledge, 1986.

Chapman, James.  Licence to Thrill: A Cultural History of the
    James Bond Films.  New York: Columbia UP, 2000.

... and, as has been noted, Stanley Kubick's Dr. Strangelove ... is not
irrelevant to any Cold War black humor here, either.  Anyway, and,
hopefully, without taking any bait, either, would note that it's the
offhanded dismissal of reasonable, tenable, and, esp. in my case
(Hollander is nothing if not rather more confident in his own
assertions, that's for sure ...), tenuously proferred readings that
indeed silence "reader responses," i.e., readings, interpretations.
Rather than flush the cocodrillos with the toiletwater, my inclination
here is to thank you for adding a resonant indeed reference to my
localized little reading ...