GR & oil

[Terrance]

Doug Millison wrote:
> 
> Oil of course plays a huge role in the world Pynchon
> depicts in GR. 

 
First, it's quite obvious that oil is very important in GR.  
Disagreeing with Barb here, Pynchon certainly had W.W.II in mind and all
over his desk when he wrote GR. We know P's sources for  IG Farben
material, oil material, banking material, etc., and  it's  impossible to
argue that oil, which  obviously played a huge role in W.W.II, is not
very, very important in GR. 
But how important? 
What did Pynchon know about oil? More importantly, what didn't he know? 
GR was published in 1973. 
In 1973-74 we had the  fourth oil crisis of the post war period. 
The first was in 1951, but P never mentions it. 
The second was in 1956, Pynchon's novel V. takes up this crisis. 
The third oil crisis, also involved the Suez Canal, but P doesn't
mention it in GR. 
The fourth oil crisis, the biggest and most important one, happened in
1973-74 and it does not figure in any P novel. When GR was published oil
was trading at around $2.50. By the time the first readers of GR were
wowed by what they had read in GR,  oil was trading in double digits.
Perhaps we inflate the role oil plays in GR because we have the benefit
of post GR history. 

BTW, Doug, you sent us an article from the SF Times on oil reserves. 
The figures in that article are misleading.  In fact the way they have
been included leads me to suspect that the author may not be simply
ignorant of the facts, but deliberately misleads his readers. 

If you care to see real figures on oil reserves I'll be more than happy
to send them along. 
 


I believe that a close reading of the
> way he treats oil -- the way companies produce it,
> what they do with it, what they do with the money they
> make from it -- reveals this addiction and destructive
> consequences, not only in global environmental terms,
> but also in a geopolitical perspective.

I don't disagree that this can be done, although I'm not comfortable
with the word "addiction" here, kinda like computers getting a virus or
a the Tv getting the flue, but one quote from the text and a brief
comment might get us going. so...