VV the WSC &c

[jbor]

----------
>From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
>

> OTR is a beautiful novel (another "lapsed Catholic" btw),
> and P ripped it off too. But, P is onto another tip
> altogether. One example,  take the suits in our current
> chapters, Benny is putting on suits, Mr. Mandoza's then
> Angel's. The suits become in P's V. not the bums in suits
> (the "[men] with the dungeon stone and the gloom, rising
> from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new
> beat generation that I was slowly joining." OTR Ch.9) but
> parody.

I think that there is quite a large dose of, if not quite parody, at least
ambivalence in Kerouac's depictions of the gang, increasingly so in the
novels after _On the Road_ perhaps. And he certainly takes the opportunity
to have some nasty personal digs even there (Rexroth as Cacoethes for one).
So I'm not sure that this is going to stand for me as "another tip
altogether" vis à vis _V._

The _Catch-22_ alignment that Plimpton addresses is another valid one for
_V._ I think, that notion or strategy of microcosm. The plot of the Mathews'
novel he mentions (_The Conversions_) has been said by several critics to be
very much the model for that of _Lot 49_. And Pynchon refers to _Augie
March_ himself in the SL Intro I think, doesn't he?

Thanks for the links and tips about Glen Cove, Long Is., NJ etc. They're all
pretty much spitting distance from the Big Apple though, aren't they? In
terms of newspapers, radio, tv etc?

best