NP? Vineland (andf GR) echoes from a former (?) P-lister

[Doug Millison]

One more quick one, then back to work.

Unfortunately -- as you may have heard from Charles
Hollander (I've enjoyed email, snail mail, and phone
correspondence with him for several years  --
Pynchon-L is dominated these days by some neo-con
(with neo-Nazi leanings in one case, I suspect)
academics (one of them did his dissertation on Ayn
Rand and remains ensconced in that camp)who can't
stand to hear anybody say anything about Pynchon's
obvious anti-corporate, anti-fascist, progressive
politics (which shine through, imo, in M&D as strongly
as in GR,  although in some ways its a mellower work,
tempered with age, it seems to me).

We had a huge brouhaha a while back when one of the
leading offenders (not Otto) denied that the slave
laborers who build the V-2 in GR could be considered
Holocaust victims -- he used the same kind of
quibbling, semantic song and dance that the
Holocaust-deniers use, as he went through gyrations to
try to demonstrate that this was a labor camp, not a
concentration camp, etc & ad nauseum. This same fellow
also applied some tired PoMo/decon approaches to
rewrite Pynchon and claim Pynchon would be a supporter
of Bush's war in Afghanistan last fall -- when it
became clear that most, if not all, of the dominant
voices on Pynchon-L were supporters of same in the
post-9-11 flag-waving orgy.  Without irony,  yet.

I really enjoyed Whiteout, bought a copy and read it
when it came out (at Cody's in Berkeley), and I follow
Counterpunch daily. 

Thanks,
Doug

P.S.  Hello, Chris!  Hope all is well with you. 

Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
http://www.Online-Journalist.com
millison at online-journalist.com




--- "Jeffrey St. Clair" <sitka at attbi.com> wrote:
> Doug--
> 
> good to hear from you. yes, you were quite right to
> focus on Wright and
> Vineland. It was, after all, his speeches and
> fundraising for the
> Wobblies which may have first excited the attention
> of the fed snoops.
> also, the link btwn PJ and GR is clear as the waters
> of Crater Lake.
> Johnson was a Nazi symp who not only didn't get run
> out of town after
> WW2, but actually became an honored architect of the
> future (now
> defended even by Pynchon scholars?), just like von
> braun and the other
> Nazi scientists who were brought down the ratline
> into the US gov,
> corporations and academia through Project Paperclip
> and the like. All
> the while, it's people like Wright that Hoover and
> his gang wanted
> brought up on charges of sedition. Sedition against
> what? yes, that's
> the really uncomfortable question.
> 
> best,
> jsc
> 
> Doug Millison wrote:
> 
> > There remain a few of us who read Pynchon the way
> you
> > do, here on Pynchon-L.
> >
> > I quoted your excellent piece on Wright because of
> the
> > Vineland echoes I heard in it -- the investigation
> of
> > Wright because of his political
> beliefs/activities,
> > not entirely unlike the way Pynchon handles a
> similar
> > phenomenon in his depiction of the Frenesi family
> in
> > Vineland.
> >
> > --- "Jeffrey St. Clair" <sitka at attbi.com> wrote:
> > [snip good stuff]
> > > johnson was
> > > an admited architectural plagiarist--a testament
> to
> > > what Barth, i guess, might
> > > deride at the Architecture of Exhaustion--except
> > > they'll never be truly exhausted
> > > of course. johnson is the perfect servant of the
> > > ruling classes, moving as
> > > seemlessly from fascism to global capitalism as
> von
> > > Braun did from V-2 to NASA.
> > > he ripped off Mies --another master of
> architectural
> > > oppression, but at least he
> > > WAS a master and not JUST a clever
> thief--repeatedly
> > > and shamelessly. admitted as
> > > much. which wasn't an act of conscience, but of
> > > hubris. the pynchon list used to
> > > have some radicals on it. now it's apparently
> > > stuffed full of gray little men who
> > > rush forward to defend fascists like philip
> johnson.
> > > what's next? pimping for
> > > Shell Oil? the Rockefellers? perhaps it's just
> that
> > > smug little thugs like Herr
> > > Otto want to suck the politics out of pynchon &
> > > reduce the text to academic
> > > chitchat about fractals and the like. but try as
> > > they might, they can't do it.
> > > GR, at least, is a secret history of the forces
> > > behind the 20th C--war and
> > > fascist architecture go hand in hand: to build
> you
> > > must destroy. ask yourself
> > > what types of communities were lost to build
> philip
> > > johnson's corporate palaces?
> > > GR is, to my mind, about the reconstructing of
> the
> > > world. PJ was one of the
> > > builders. Nazis/oil companies/missile
> makers/steel
> > > towers...all one big machine.
> > > you can't hide the fact that architecture is all
> > > about politics--and one look at
> > > any of PJ's structures gives a clear indication
> of
> > > which side he's on. to deny
> > > that is a fools game. a great big con job.
> > >
> > > over and out.
> > >
> > > jsc
> >
> > Pynchon does pays attention to architecture in GR,
> > doesn't he, and elsewhere.
> >
> > "Brock [...] leaning darkly in above her like any
> of
> > the sleek raptors that
> > decorate fascist architecture." (Vineland, p. 287)
> >
> > Keep up the good work in Counterpunch and your
> books.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Doug
> >
> > =====
> > <www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com>
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
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> 


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