Paranoia: What is a character?

[Terrance]

Paul Nightingale wrote:
> 
> Secondly, Paul characterises the text itself as paranoid. Yes, if this means
> the text couldn't have been written without paranoia. P-listers have argued
> over (sorry, discussed) GR and whether it refers to the Vietnam war. The
> novel could only have been written at a time when the Watergate scandal was
> made possible by the refusal to accept, unquestioningly, the actions and
> constructions of political leaders. 

 I'm never sure what we are discussing or arguing about here (the
exception being when we actually discuss the texts we have in common
(Pynchon's a few others). I'm dead serious. Your posts have been a
pleasure to read because you have been posting MDMD posts and I am
currently reading M&D. I am somewhat familiar with some of the other
texts you have referenced  and I'm  familiar with the literary
approaches (the "critical" texts) you have (minus the jargon and shop
talk and terms that always cause more problems around here than they
solve), I think, brought to the discussion but have not submitted as
prerequisites for discussion. 

Anyway, I am reading your posts with great interest and I'm happy that
Paul M. is interested as well. 


 


I'm also thinking of Angus Calder's The
> People's War, first published in the late-60s: this history of British
> society during WWII set out to explode some of the cosy myths that survived
> from the 1940s, constructions that had glossed over the question of class
> conflict for example. M&D could only have been published when the writing of
> history had been problematised by Foucault and others.