Oh, no! War talk on Pynchon-L?

[barbara100 at jps.net]

I was gonna moan, Oh, for Heaven's sake, when I read Terrance's latest. Talk about flare-ups after a relatively quiet few weeks.  He did seem to insinuate 
war talk wasn't fair game here, at least where Doug is concerned. No he didn't say it outright, but he did insinuate it. Didn't he?  Should I go back and read it? Should you? 
And I think there's a lot of evidence to support the idea that some p-listers don't take what Pynchon writes seriously.  It's not a whiney and self-serving statement, it's an astute observation. Of course you might not think so, but I do. I would try to produce evidence to support the idea, but what use would it be if reading is such a subjective experience? You'd only refute it. So let's just chalk it up to differences of opinions, shall we? 
Barbara  


Original Message:
-----------------
From: The Great Quail quail at libyrinth.com
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 16:35:49 -0500
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Oh, no! War talk on Pynchon-L?


Oh, for heaven's sake!

Doug moans,

>Ignore Pynchon's serious treatment of issues of war, Cold War, complicity
>in war crimes, etc., if you wish,

1. No one is ignoring any of this; in fact, by postulating different 
interpretations and/or expressing our views that Pynchon's writing 
contains unknown elements and ambiguities, we are decidedly *not* 
ignoring it. I think what you mean is, "Disagree with my 
interpretation of Pynchon's serious treatment..." Yes?

>but many Pynchon readers choose to take
>what Pynchon writes seriously.

2. You are assuming that disagreeing with you implies we do not take 
Pynchon seriously; you have no evidence for this. It's just a 
ludicrous, self-serving, whiny statement.

>Pynchon's not all funny character names and
>narratological games, after all.

3. Has anyone recently stated this?

>He appears to take politics and history
>and especially the War that never ends quite seriously, and certainly it's
>fair game for discussion on Pynchon-L.

4. Again, has anyone stated that it is not fair game?

Yet again, a mixture of distortion and paranoia.....What the hell are 
you even saying any of this for? Or are we about to be subjected to 
another case of Doug e-Herpes Flare Up after a few weeks of relative 
calm? Eeek, I say, eeeeek!

--Quail


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