GR & the SL 'Intro': relevance to 2001

[Phil Wise]

>
> The shoe here is very much on the other foot, the "wrong" foot, as it was
> for the U.S. on September 11 and has been ever since. Even though there
have
> been bombs before, and mass destruction and death, it is always somewhere
> else, someone else. From the point of view of the victim -- always --
"there
> is nothing to compare it to now." No matter what came later, what will
come,
> on that day, and in the weeks since, civilians in the U.S., like those in
> Britain under siege from the V-2s in WWII in _GR_, are *victims*.
>
> At the opening of _GR_ it is an "Evacuation" of London (Pirate's dream
> vision, mingled with the "screaming" of the V-2 containing Katje's SOS
> message, his "Incoming mail"), and the fear, the destruction, which is
> depicted. It is explicitly the experience of innocent Londoners during the
> V-2 raids of 1944-5 in which the reader's imagination and empathy become
> immersed.
>
>     [...] Slothrop [...] praying, at first, conventionally, to God,
>     first time since the other Blitz, for life to win out. But too many
>     were dying [...]  (p. 24)
>
> The question posed by these London sequences is: how should an individual
> react when he or she is being bombed? More than that, Pynchon recreates
the
> ethical dilemma: how does a nation react? And, his scathing satire of the
> bungling, foolish British Foreign Office minions and their "responses" --
> Pudding, Achtung, Pisces, the White Visitation, Pointsman et al. --
depicts
> indecision and inaction as a thoroughly inappropriate course.

But in GR the war is seen differently by different people.  The nations the
novel focusses most firmly on are those of the elect and the preterite,
rather than the political altercations in history between the Axis and
Allies.  Pynchon, I think, is already in a Zone here - he doesn't seem to be
arguing for (or against) response to attack as a nation state.  I don't
think that the satires on the peripheral activities you mention need imply
that Pynchon's criticising inaction - unless I have my time-frames screwed
up, the Allied soldiers were already fighting their way toward Germany at
this point.  It would be the previous Blitz he would have focussed on if he
were to criticize this, I think, along with the Allies allowing Russia to
absorb Germany's might for several years before opening the long-promised
Western Front once Russia had them licked.

>
> (One of the failings of the novel imo is that this ethical angle isn't
> really sustained, the air and ground campaigns on the European Fronts are
> virtually unmentioned in the text. There's the unspeakable horror of MB
DRO
> ROSHI, of course, but that's another one of those cusp moments Jasper
> mentioned, and a different "Theatre" of war altogether. In terms of the
> retaliations against German cities perhaps Pynchon thought that Vonnegut
had
> said all that needed to be said in _Slaughterhouse 5_. At least, that's a
> book which I see as a worthwhile companion to _GR_, and a very probable
> influence.)

Great book.

>
> And, as to that other half-quoted sentence from the 1984 _SL_ 'Intro':
>
>     Except for the succession of criminally insane who have enjoyed power
>     since 1945, including the power to do something about it, most of the
>     rest of us poor sheep have always been stuck with simple, standard
fear.
>                                                             (18-19)
>
> You can't ignore that central clause, no matter how hard you might try.
> Since 1984 "our common nightmare, the Bomb", has become less of a threat,
> largely due to the fact that *global* agreements have seen a reduction in
> weapons of mass destruction and nuclear armouries, the fact that those who
> have had "the power to do something about it" *have* done something about
> it.

While this may be true to a degree, I'm not sure that Bush himself can be
said to be on solid ground in this regard.  Before 9/11, Bush was actually
making strategic decisions that were having the effect of increasing the
threat they posed by threatening to break such international agreements.
Missile defence seems or seemed likely to have the effect of putting Russia
and China on higher alert.  Bush cut funding for programmes designed to help
Russia secure and dismantly ageing arsenals.

>
> Same deal now. Bush could've nuked the crap out of Afghanistan.
> Indiscriminately. And Iraq. And Pakistan and Indonesia and anywhere else
> that dared say "boo". He didn't. He waited for the evidence to emerge. He
> sought international consensus. He negotiated with the Taliban to hand
over
> the chief suspect. And then, when all other alternatives had been
exhausted,
> he declared a just war on the regime harbouring the terrorist leaders and
> began strategic bombing raids on their military installations and
transport
> and communications centres. Anything less would have been suicide.

Actually, there is no way Bush could have indiscriminately nuked Afghanistan
or Iraq.  Afghanistan borders China and Pakistan, both Nuclear capable, as
well as former Russian republics.  I think it would be fair to say that Mr
Putin would have had something very firm to say about nuclear detonation
there.  Meanwhile, Nuking Iraq would have set virtually the entire middle
east against him, and shot any chance of coalition building.

Although I won't say you are wrong about the sequence of events above, there
are clearly lies coming from both sides about what negotiations happened,
what was offered and what was accepted/not.  I don't think we will know for
a number of years.
>
> Bush, more than any other world leader at this time, is the one who has
the
> "power to do something about it," about that Bomb which has been poised to
> drop on the U.S., and the rest of the world, since war was declared
> *against* the U.S. on September 11. And what he has done has been
> reasonable, and just. Whatever the outcome now, it's pretty obvious that
> Pynchon, being a rational and reasonable man himself, would be amongst the

> 90% of Westerners who acknowledge the necessity and propriety of the
> U.S.-led actions to stop terrorists with bombs.

Does the last sentence refer to using bombs to stop terrorists, or do the
terrorists have the bombs?  If the former, the course of action is debatable
in the least (if there are active terrorists plotting mayhem in cells, I
believe that sly, one on one action, to get all of them, would be far more
effective than bombing.  Bombing is rationalised as destroying Teleban
infrastructure in order to capture BL, but the actual terrorists who pose
danger are elsewhere).  If the latter, almost all rational and reasonable
people would agree that stopping terrorists with bombs, guns, anthrax,
whatever is reasonable.  They may well differ as to the best mnethods,
however.
>
> I've got a little thought exercise, one to do with democratic process, and
> justice, and common sense: If there were a Presidential election in the
U.S.
> tomorrow, Bush versus anyone you care to put up against him, Clinton,
> Chomsky, Susan Sontag, what would the result be?

Just curious, but why not Gore, who probably should be the guy making the
calls Bush is making, anyway?

phil

>
> best
>
> ps to Barbara. I sleep with a clear conscience, though I realised as you
> must have also that I'd never be able to match the hysterical pitch and
> thoroughgoing idiocy of *your* rants. But don't feel too bad that you have
> no answers, and that you are unable to sustain a reasonable discussion
here.
> It's no big deal, nor any surprise.
>
>
>
>