MDMD: America

[Richard Romeo]

doug sed:
>
"what America can still represent" seems to be the >problem, because 
America-as-symbol seems so at odds with
>America-the-reality in M&D.  Time and again, Pynchon points to specific
>ways that the reality undermines the dream -- genocide of the indigenous 
> >people, degradation of the environment, a "revolution" that's actually 
>scam >to shift control from one propertied class to another, etc.
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potential is never discounted either, except in V. which is probably the 
grimmest book Pynchon has written. I am of the opinion that exposing 
America's wrongs is not a fruitless, throwing of the hands up, howl.  It's 
Pynchon's reversal of the false view of American exceptionalism that I find 
encouraging--we are not different from other nations, but these lofty, naive 
set of ideals remains part of the American mid-set, tho we seem to fail at 
reaching them.  But they remain.
---

>I'm not so >sure about children being able to "redeem" America, either -- 
>Mason's boys, >at the end of the novel, are obviously seduced by the wildly 
>Romantic >vision of America that Pynchon has thoroughly undercut and 
>exposed as a >sham in the previous 700+ pages.
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Some of the characters may feel that way, but it may be hard to pin down 
Pynchons view beyond what we know.  Note that Mason ends up saying in 
America and that tho Dixon dies in England, he wishes to return. There are 
too many poetic and poignant laments to discount about America in Vineland 
and M&D.
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>I don't see Pynchon refusing to give up >on what America can represent as 
>much as I see him refusing to give up on >what people, individuals and 
>collectively, can do in the face of an array >of forces -- economic and 
>political (what Walter Wink calls the "domination >system" in his 
>three-volume work, _Naming the Powers_, _Unmasking the >Powers_, and 
>_Engaging the Powers_) -- that will  turn a relatively >unspoiled continent 
>into the quasi-fascist US that Pynchon portrays in his >earlier novels.
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We fall into that Us vs. Them problemo--I'm not sure I'll ever read Pynchon 
for blueprints for action, but for perspective.
---

>I see this most clearly in Pynchon's choice to present
>Dixon's non-violent action to set free a group of slaves; considering that 
> >noble act in the context of the picture of race relations in the US that 
>P >has presented in "The Mind of Watts" makes it seem rather futile, 
>however.
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But that act represents, it seems to me, a mythic act, one to tell the 
young'uns or uninformed about right and wrong. And it's not really 
non-violent is it?
Is it noble or selfish?

Rich



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