Reading & Politics

[Paul Nightingale]

My name is Paul Nightingale and I'm a teacher in England. I've been reading Pynchon since the mid-70s: Jimmy Carter was still President (no Iranian Revolution that encouraged the West to support Saddam Hussein before demonising him because it suited their interests, no Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that produced, in Western political culture, 'plucky Taliban freedom-fighters'). This is certainly not how I imagined making my first contribution to the list, responding to, and taking part in, a discussion about (in George Bush's words) an attack on freedom. This week has been extraordinary, by any standards, although I don't think the world has changed: we are perhaps compelled to think about it differently. This is the world we live in; Tuesday's events simply make it more difficult to go on ignoring it. One point of such attacks is to say 'we' exist. I came home Tuesday evening, determined to ignore the TV news (I could predict the nature of the coverage). I was much affected by the messages I found on the p-list (this was about 2-3 pm New York time) - there is nothing 'virtual' about this community. Subsequently, I was rather more disappointed - to liken criticism of US Imperialism to blaming a rape victim is nonsense, although the hysterical note struck by this particular contribution was not representative. I think reading M&D should continue. We don't stop thinking at such times; on the contrary, we should think rather more carefully. GR is an astonishing work. Pynchon seemed intent on writing the novel that made novel-writing impossible. Follow this, he said. To which we reply, how? M&D is clearly a more mature work. Rereading it now, I'm reminded that I opted out of celebrating Blair's election in May 1997, choosing instead to spend the weekend reading the new Pynchon. Now I'm reading it again and Blair, the wannabe Thatcher, sickens me even more than he did then. Reading is politics, you cannot separate the two.
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