SLSL Intro "The Way of Communication"

[pynchonoid]

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> one can safely assume Pynchon
> was a one of the "college
> kids", or student radicals

Pynchon was obviously a college kid, of course, but I
don't think the Intro makes it clear at all that he
was a student radical.  Pynchon left Cornell to join
the US Navy, after all, not to join Castro in the
mountains to fight against Batista. 


> It's pretty easy to trace the theme of Pynchon's
> disillusionment with the
> '60s radical "Left" in his novels: the Tristero in
> _Lot49_, whose members
> are forced to send meaningless letters to one
> another on a daily basis or
> face a fine; those inductees into "the Counterforce"
> in _GR_ being led
> around by strings of taffy; the "People's Republic
> of Rock and Roll" in
> _Vineland_ where Weed Atman is made the leader
> because he's tall etc etc.
> Frenesi, the real leader of the student radical
> movement in that novel, is
> actually responsible for some of the most
> reprehensible actions of any
> Pynchon character in any of his novels.

Pynchon hardly depicts these elements in a vacuum. The
novels also show the outrageous and excesses that the
underground fights against. 

>Whether or not
> some in this "radical"
> group are in fact agents provocateurs for the Right,
> or whether they are
> just fools, remains to be seen.

Can't argue with that. 

> 
>the
> divide between Pynchon and Bush ....


...remains wide, judging from the way Pynchon put the
rumors about Bush I having something to do with the
cocaine trade in Vineland in 1984, and reminding
Playboy Japan last fall, after the September 11
attacks, of the Bush family's business connections
with Osama bin Laden.

-Doug





=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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