Benny's Job

[jbor]

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>From: <davidmmonroe at hotmail.com>
>

> are reading Pynchon as making such
> comparisons, as utilizing such tropes, and not making, utilizing them
> themselves.

Indeed. The responsibility for the unapt trope is being dumped in the
author's lap. But, what if he *wasn't* utilising it? What if it was neither
in the mind (conscious or not) of the author nor, demonstrably, in the
language of the text? Who then takes responsibility for the (absent) trope?
The "trope" which has been inserted into the text by the reader? Perhaps
"against" the text (and author)?

Why is it necessary to exclude the interpretation that the text *isn't*
directly analogising Vietnamese people as cannibalistic amphibians? And damn
and vilify those who would have the audacity to suggest as much?

But, further than this, why is it being deemed improper to assert that such
an analogy isn't an apt one, *whoever* might be making it? It *isn't* an apt
analogy. At all.

Is consideration of what has been *left out* of the text a valid form of
interpretation? Or is it against some "rules", and thus an interpretive
strategy to be excluded?

Can civil demurs not be ventured within the framework of this discussion? If
not why not?

A question: Can both these interpretations co-exist?

The Holocaust is central to _GR_.

The Holocaust is not central to _GR_.

Or, if one prefers:

_Lot 49_ is an encrypted meditation on the assassination of JFK.

_Lot 49 is not an encrypted meditation on the assassination of JFK.

What are the excluded middle grounds here? (I would say polite discourse,
but then ... ) It's certainly that middle ground I'm interested in, have
been working in &c. How about it?

best