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

Jeffrey St. Clair sitka at attbi.com
Mon Aug 19 14:56:19 CDT 2002


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>
>
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