Watts article (Re: NP Genoa)

[jbor]

on 7/24/01 12:33 AM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:

> What can we make of Pynchon's admission, in the Slow Learner
> Introduction, that some of the offensiveness in those early
> stories can be attributed to his own prejudices?
> 

Pynchon does not refer to the Watts article in the _Slow Learner_ 'Intro'.

> P opens himself to these criticism. Sure, it's 2001 and the
> essay on Watts, from a white intellectual,  is better than a
> lot of the stuff that was  written at the time, but
> I can't help but feel that P's approach is a "tourist's
> approach," where the author "visit" a different culture and
> picks up a few local phrases and "gospels" and tries to
> incorporate these
> into his more bookish tendencies.

I think this is a pretty harsh judgement on Pynchon's attempt, as an
individual with a commitment to equity and social justice, to empathise with
the Watts residents (as well as with the local authorities) in the article.
I think some of his flowery literary language is out of place (the
description of the aeroplanes, for example, is so poetic that it obscures
the fact of the noise and pollution which the people of Watts are forced to
endure because their homes are situated right under the flight paths, or,
rather, the flight path is aimed directly over their homes), and the bit
about the pre-cardiac Mustang drivers is over the top, but I've always had
the impression that he actually went there and that he talked to the people
and tried to give voice to what they were feeling. I think you miss the
point of the stylistic conceit of the article, which is that when he starts
to use the "you" construction he is imaginatively empathising with the point
of view of the people he is writing about (much as he does in his fiction),
and so (at least some of) the stereotypes you detect are the ones they hold,
and which he does not endorse himself.

But you're entitled to your opinions.

best