still more re that interview

[Doug Millison]

How I "diminish your right a point of view on the issue" by taking what you
say seriously and engaging you in conversation is a mystery to me.   I'm
sorry you feel that way. I observe that nothing I've posted has prevented
you from writing posts in return, on this or on any other topic.

Whether your skepticism is "healthy" or otherwise, I'll leave to others to
judge; it's certainly not based on anything substantial, as you appear to
admit you've done nothing to validate your skepticism and have produced no
evidence to support it.  If you're "content to wait for verification" why
the knee-jerk reaction of assuming it's a hoax, instead of waiting with an
open mind?

Speaking of distortion, if you go back and read what I've written about the
Playboy Japan interview, you will note that I haven't "jumped the gun" and
assumed it's authentic, instead I've consistently spoken of comments
"attributed to" Pynchon, and acknowledged that doubts about its
authenticity exist -- your revision of what I've actually written is the
distortion.

And, I beg to differ with you on whether the remarks attributed to Pynchon
amount to a critique of the war.  Pynchon (if it is indeed him) says (in
what we all realize is a translation from English to Japanese and back to
English), "America always looks for an enemy. The country cannot feel O.K.
without it. It has labeled Bin Laden as the bad guy who commanded the
terrorist attacks from behind the scenes, only because we couldn't feel
O.K. unless we made him. But I think Bin Laden is just somebody's rodeo
clown."   Given that Bush's stated aim in the war has been  to get bin
Laden and his terrorist network, it seems to me that questioning bin
Laden's status as the bad guy amounts to a critique of the war -- but feel
free to disagree. It's hardly takes the "wildest stretch of the
imagination" to read this statement as a critique of the war -- I'd say
instead that the real imaginative effort goes into reading it as anything
else. King George Conqueror of Evildoers starts to look a bit ridiculous is
you see him fighting a clown or puppet.

If -- and it remains a big if -- this is Pynchon, this comment alone would
seem to undercut more or less completely the claims made in this forum, by
"jbor" and Quail, that Pynchon could be assumed to support this war. And if
it turns out these comments in Playboy Japan do not come from Pynchon,
based on the evidence in his novels I'd say you do a Pynchon a disservice
to claim him as a supporter of Bush's war on Afghanistan.  That's only my
opinion, of course.

-Doug

P.S. I'm not aware that anybody has conclusively proved the Tinasky letters
to be a hoax.  There's been a lot of discussion on both sides of that
question, and evidence offered for each side,  but no *definitive*
judgement that's been broadly accepted by Pynchon scholars that I've read
or heard about, still more questions than answers on that score.



"jbor"
Your speculations about what other people are thinking or feeling are
baseless and quite condescending, and much of your rebuttal today has relied
on attempts to distort my comments or otherwise diminish my right to express
a point of view on the issue. After the example of the Tinasky hoax I'd say
that a healthy scepticism about the authenticity and/or authorisation of the
"interview" is a valid reaction. I'm quite content to wait for verification:
you are the one who has jumped the gun on that score. But even if it is
proved to be legit. it isn't by the wildest stretch of the imagination a
"critique of the US war ... in Afghanistan", as you have tried to assert.