Quail: "You won't even simply *give up* when asked. [...] stop lecturing me"

[The Great Quail]

>There's the problem, Barbara:  Quail is upset  because you won't obey and
>do what he wants you to do.

Well, you word it harshly, but I would like to stop arguing about the 
War with you and Barbara, because I think the discussion along these 
axes has run its course.

>Apparently he wants to do all the lecturing and
>name-calling on the P-list,  that's obvious from what he's written on
>Pynchon-L these past many days.

I don't think I have done that much name-calling; though I admit, any 
post expounding a viewpoint can sound like lecturing. I was 
protesting Barbra's assumption of a higher intellectual and moral 
plane.

>Just go back and read his posts, if you've
>got the stomach  to work your way back though that swamp of limp-noodle
>logic.

I don't think my logic has been weak. You may not agree with some of 
my *conclusions*, but I don't feel I have been irrational or "limp." 
I would also think that "swamp" is not a good metaphor, because I 
have been essentially consistent in my arguments.

>Here's my theory:  so thoroughly have people like Quail been co-opted by
>the bitch goddess America, they can only react hysterically

I am reacting hysterically? This statement alone, excerpted above, 
should show some irony to that. But I like your phrase 
"bitch-goddess." It has more zest than your usual tired anti-American 
language. (Please note; this is the first time I called you 
anti-American; but I am flabbergasted to think of any pro- or even 
neutral-American sentiments lurking in your above statement.)

>  when it begins
>to appear that this art object they venerate -- Pynchon's writing -- may
>reveal uncomfortable truths about America.

Well, of course Pynchon's writing reveals uncomfortable untruths 
about America. I like that about it -- far from truth is your 
assertion that it makes me hysterical. There's a lot of things 
regarding the United States to feel uncomfortable about. But I think 
Pynchon reveals uncomfortable truths to both the left and the right. 
But of course, people like you and Barbara fail to see that Pynchon 
may be talking *to* you as well. You are too busy defining him so as 
to make the claim that he is talking *for* you.

>They miss Pynchon's irony
>entirely,

I appreciate and savor the irony in Pynchon. Though I think it is 
more multi-dimensional than you do; you only see irony in that which 
supports your narrow view.

>it's beyond their ken that Slothrop or Pokler might represent the
>kind of journey of discovery that each of us can take if we start noticing
>what's actually going on in the world around us.

You mat believe that, but Slothrop's journey is actually one of my 
favorite topics:

http://www.TheModernWord.com/pynchon/pynchon_granalysis.html

Though I am more attracted to the literary inversion of the Hero myth 
than the moral dimension does not mean that I do not see it.

>What would happen if you
>looked closely at the companies that manufacture the weapons used in the
>current war, if you followed the money and saw how the same companies and
>shareholders profit by supplying all sides in the current conflict, if you
>investigated and learned to what degree we have created and nurtured and
>sustained the enemy we now fight, if you came to grips with the
>responsibility we share for the suffering by virtue of our support for the
>leaders and institutions that carry out that suffering in our names, if you
>confronted the reality that inside of us of us is a tendency to evil that
>we can't split off and destroy no matter how hard we try, we can only come
>to terms with it and learn not to let the evil tendency dominate our
>behaviors. That's a scary line of thought.

You are correct, sir. In fact, I have addressed all this in my posts, 
and still I support military action, though that decision fills me 
with confusion and pain, and I still doubt myself every day. However, 
you must understand, Doug -- I have addressed all of your above 
issues in my posts; despite your insistence, so Barbara-like, that if 
only I would see these things, I would see the Light, and become 
exactly like you.

>In Pynchon's fictional setting,
>coming to grips with that seems to blow Slothrop apart, and it crushes
>Pokler.

I disagree with your interpretation of Slothrop's end.

>It's threatening to the reader, too; this is subversive
>literature, profoundly subversive.  so it comes as no suprise that readers
>like Quail have got to keep Pynchon up there on the bookshelf and deny his
>work is anything but "fiction", unwilling to admit that Pynchon might
>really mean it when he talks about the "the criminally insane who have
>enjoyed power  since 1945".

I have not denied that his work is anything but "fiction." I have 
made a passion of my life out of exploring good fiction, because of 
what it teaches us. However, it is still fiction, and by that, it is 
one man's viewpoint. It is not something I choose to guide every 
aspect of my life.

I think an interesting topic to discuss would be Pynchon's 
relationship to power. Can any world leader indeed be anything *but* 
"criminally insane" according to him? Is Pynchon an anarchist at 
heart? Does he have the luxury of being only a novelist and 
philosopher, responsible for nothing but the governance of his own 
family, and thereby exempt from making choices in a world-spectrum of 
Realpolitik? Does this freedom as a cultural critic add or detract 
from his ability to be a subversive force?

>You are right to focus on GR in the current
>situation,

Is there *anything* that you two do *not* agree on?

>a novel that begins in the midst of a terror attack from the
>skies and which ends with a manned bomb falling to trigger what may be the
>long-awaited apocalypse; in between those two pages Pynchon explores in
>some detail  how we come to live in a world defined by such terror.

Or conversely, it could relate how the conditions of our humanity and 
our world define that terror. Could it show that there is a loop, a 
vicious cycle? That to have a desire for political power invites 
lunatics, because it is essentially an impossible situation? So are 
some of the lessons I see in his later work; none of which either 
condone terror or disallow Pynchon from taking moral stances. In 
other words, I don't exactly disagree with you on interpreting 
Pynchon as a moral writer; I just have a different, and I would 
argue, more complex, view.

>I do
>believe we might be able to learn something from this novel, and P's other
>work, that could help us in the current situation (great literature often
>helps people in their lives outside the book). Too bad that's not a welcome
>subject here on Pynchon-L,

It seems welcome to me. I would think everyone on this List would 
agree with you. Some of us merely disagree with your 
*interpretations.* We all might "learn" different things from books, 
we all might have different interpretations. But that seems to bother 
you; when you are faced with disagreement, you then attack your 
opponent as not wanting to learn anything from literature. That 
approach is hardly accurate, and is more than a little bit 
self-serving.

>  it gets shouted down by Quail and his ilk

Hee hee -- I have "ilk!" Cool. I have never had Quail-ilk before.

But, oh -- yeah -- no one is shouting you down, Doug. That's either 
(a) paranoia, or (b) an expression of your inability to cope with 
different opinions.

>each
>time the topic surfaces, and they've become rather hysterical on this
>point:  what on earth, they have asked repeatedly in recent days, can a
>novel published 28 years ago have to do with the current geopolitical
>situation?

I don't think anyone is quite going that far. Again, we disagree with 
some of your interpretations on exactly how and when it applies. And, 
yes, I don't like being compared to Pokler, a fictional character in 
a different situation. That doesn't mean that (a) I don't think 
fiction can teach us anything, or (b) I don't think GR as a whole has 
nothing to "say" to the current situation. Frankly, I don't think it 
has as much to say about it as you do. Which is not to denigrate 
Pynchon, but to indicate that I feel the situation is different than 
both WWII and Vietnam.

>The intellectual bankruptcy that undergirds that question is
>absolutely stunning.

So we are stupid, too?

>The good news is, this handful of blowhards doesn't speak for Pynchon-L.

Of course not! And you -- and Lord knows, even you must confess to 
being at least as much a blowhard as I am -- don't speak for the 
whole P-List, either. Doug, calm down. No one here is under serious 
attack. No one is claiming a mandate from the entire List. No one is 
out to silence your opinions. (Though I for one could have less of 
your hysterics and repetitions.)

>Way more P-listers disagree than agree
>with this groupuscule's

"Groupuscle?" That's funny. I like that.

>  effort to marginalize Pynchon, their wishy-washy
>support of Bush and multinational corporations,  the nasty way they're
>trying to stifle discussion on Pynchon-L. I hear from them offlist, and I
>expect that you do, too.  They don't like to see the P-list dominated by a
>handful of people whose political positions are so diametrically opposed to
>the politics that Pynchon expresses in his work.

I really don't think any side is dominating the List; nor would I be 
uncomfortable if I were the lone voice of support for military 
action. I hardly want to stifle discourse; I only told Barbara that I 
was through replying to posts from her on the subject of the War.

>  But you don't see any of
>us telling Quail and his cronies

Are cronies related to ilk? Do I have both cronies *and* ilk? I hope 
so, it makes me sound like a gangster.

>to shut up -- no, they arrogate that right
>to themselves, with regard to the people they don't like to hear, these
>good burghers of Pynchonville.  What hypocrites they are.

How about that pint now?

--Quail