A sketch of Pynchonian politics

[Jane O' Sweet]

Phil Wise wrote:


> 
> Remember that at the end of the book, "all of us" are distracted by the forthcoming spectacle of the movie in the theatre, one linked back to the novel's opening ("a screaming comes across the sky.  It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now"), nothing to compare it because this is it, the finality: the system has gotten to a point where it can finally encompass all of humanity and erase us.  In addition, it is worth noting that in Vineland, the spectacle, which is portrayed in the novel as so effective in distracting the people from the real movements in Their war against them, has replaced a redundant Brock Vond - his funding pulled because he's embarrassing Them in public, risking resistence, exposing the system for what it is.

??????? can you please provide some pages please. 


> 
> Pynchon's narrator continues: "It [the murdering and violence] provides raw material to be recorded in History, so that children may be taught History as a sequence of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world.  Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that pie while they're still here to gobble it up.  The true war is a celebration of markets..." (105).  

>So, the little people, well below Their position, are given
>an incentive to play the market game and thus be implicated
>in the "true war": if they are not individualistic enough to
>try and grab a piece of that pie, the spectre of mass death
>faces them. 

How does this work? Not sure I understand your reading of
this???