Pynchon's Presidents

[Paul Mackin]

One reason Washington and Jefferson might have been allowed a lttle slack in
M&D is that the former was a surveyor and the latter's father was.

Not the main issue I realize.

P.

jbor wrote:

> 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