Pynchon's Presidents

[jbor]

Might prove to be an interesting exercise this one, I think.

Working backwards: The characterisation of George Washington in _M&D_ is
quite complimentary, and there's nothing negative in the portrayal of Thomas
Jefferson that I could see either. However, William Jefferson Clinton is
lambasted quite scathingly in the very first chapter, of course.

I haven't been back to _Vineland_ in a while, but I wonder how the
references to Reagan weigh up against those to LBJ and his escalation of the
Vietnam War - if there are any, that is.

Dwight David Eisenhower doesn't come out of _GR_ too badly, although Byron
the Bulb does seem to have had it in for Herbert Clark Hoover (649.12).
Nixon as Richard M. Zhlubb is ridiculed, but it's almost a cartoon
stereotype. He's more foolish than evil. Even less flattering are the
depictions of JFK and FDR:

"Jack Kennedy, the ambassador's son" (GR 65.33)

It is nice to think that one Saturday night [...] Malcolm looked up from
some Harvard kid's shoes and caught the eye of Jack Kennedy (the
Ambassador's son), then a senior. Nice to think that young Jack may have had
one of them Immortal Lightbulbs then go on overhead--did Red suspend his
ragpopping just the shadow of a beat, just enough gap in the moiré there to
let white Jack see through, not through to but through *through* the shine
on his classmate Tyrone Slothrop's shoes?" (GR 688.19)

"Roosevelt, a being They assembled, a being They would dismantle. . . . "
                                                    (GR 374.25)

And, of course:

"We must also never forget Missouri Mason Harry Truman: sitting by virtue of
death in office, this very August 1945, with his control-finger poised right
on Miss Enola Gay's atomic clit, making ready to tickle 100,000 little
yellow folks into what will come down as a fine vapor-deposit of
fat-cracklings wrinkled into the fused rubble of their city on the Inland
Sea. . . . " (GR 588.7)

It's the most heartfelt and contemptuous testimonial of them all, surely.

Can't recall offhand if there are presidential apparitions in _Lot 49_, _V._
or any of the early stories.

best