still more re that "interview"

[jbor]

"Doug Millison" at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

> 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.

You've continually said I'm taking "uninformed potshots", accused me of
making a "knee-jerk denial", insisted that "if you wish to support your
debunking claim, show some supporting evidence", and made the accusation
that I, and others, are only expressing our opinions because we are "so
nervous about Pynchon talking to the press". None of these assertions is
accurate or fair, nor do they indicate an attempt to seriously engage with
what has been posted.

> 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.

I've offered a point of view and given a raft of reasons to support that
point of view. You've produced no evidence to support your assertion of the
interview's authenticity either, so why the double standard?

> 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.

For starters, the evidence which has been presented in the time since the
alleged interview (i.e. the video footage where bin Laden gleefully admitted
foreknowledge of the sequence of the Sept. 11 attacks) has rendered the
notion that bin Laden is "just somebody's rodeo clown" as totally
wrong-headed. Even so, to claim that this quote "amounts to a critique of
the war" is absurd.

>From what I've seen so far, even if Pynchon did make those comments, or
something approaching them, it was not a conversation which he was expecting
to be published. On the strength of what he has authorised to be published
under his name, and how he has reacted when his name has been
misappropriated, or private correspondence has been published without his
permission, I'd say that the balance of evidence points to it being
inauthentic, or a bowdlerised recount of an ad hoc conversation at most.

> 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.

Whose war on where?! Quail went out of his way to say that he didn't think
Pynchon would support the international military action against the Taliban
and Al Qaeda, so why do you feel the need to continue to misrepresent him?

And I'm not doing Pynchon "a disservice" or claiming him as anything. My
point was that, statistically-speaking, and giving him credit for at least a
low-to-moderate amount of common sense, the likelihood is that Pynchon would
be in favour of the international coalition against terrorism, and that, on
the basis of his scathing representation in _GR_ of those statesmen who
supported a policy of appeasement towards Hitler in the lead-up to WWII, he
would not be an advocate of the type of pacifism-at-any-cost, US-blaming,
and "reap the whirlwind" platitudes which you spout.

> That's only my
> opinion, of course.

Yes, that's all it is.

> -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.

So, while you hold up an unauthenticated interview in Japanese _Playboy_ as
proof positive of Pynchon's opposition to the international alliance and
military campaign against terrorist cells and their supporters in
Afghanistan, you're dismissing as inconclusive CNN's citation of Pynchon's
denial regarding the Tinasky letters:

"I did not write those letters. This has been a hoax that I've had nothing
to do with. I'm sorry it's gone on as long as it has."

http://www.cnn.com/US/9706/05/pynchon/

What was all that again about "knee-jerk denials" and "hot buttons being
pushed"?

I have no interest in prolonging this discussion with you any further.

best