SLSL Intro "The Way of Communication"

[Dave Monroe]

"It was not a case of either/or, but an expansion of
possibilities.  I don't think we were consciously
groping after any synthesis, although perhaps we
should have been.  The success of the 'new left' later
in the '60's was to be limited by the failure of
college kids and blue-collar workers to get together
politically.  One reason was the presence of real,
invisible class force fields in the way of
communication between the two groups." (SL, "Intro,"
p. 7)

>From Jules Siegel, Christine Wexler, et al., Lineland:
Mortality and Mercy on the Internet's
Pynchon-L at Waste.Org Discussion List (Philadelphia:
Intangible Assets Manufacturing, 1997), "Part 3: A
Midnight Visit with the Werewolf," pp. 46-68 ...

Christine Wexler (nee Jolly)

   "The hippies tried to steer it in the right
direction but they were too irresponsible and they
tried to change the institutions too fast for the
middle and lower classes.  There was a big backlash. 
They were frightened and jealous.  That's what Thomas
Pynchon's books are about--the backlash and resentment
about food stamps on both sides; food stamps put
labels on people, they were shame-based--and the loss
of sentimentality among families and lovers.  It's as
if the culture had a surgeon come in and cut out the
part of the heart that was the source of feelings of
sentimentality.  People had to give up cherishing each
other to protect themsleves against a new virulent
strain of killer bee humans, the young barbarians, the
preppies, the white male preppies on Wall Street and
their merge and acquisistion jobs.  They gave up
poetry too along the way.  Poets are an endangered
species.  That's what Tom wanted to be, a poet." (pp.
52-3)

"He's very conventional and old-fashioned and has the
values of his generation of the Fifties from upper
class Oyster Bay.  He never met a person who said
'dig' or 'man' or 'it's not my bag.'  It's only in his
imagination...." (p. 53-4)

   "He's a Yankee, a New Engalnder--wear it out, make
it do, or do without.
   "He needs to follow the Calvinist work ethic in
order not to feel guilt about his life.  He has to
measure up to the Yankee ideal.  It's all Newport,
Rhode Island stuff, the old WASP combined with the
inward-looking Irish Catholic.  He's a conservative
old-fashioned workaholic with good values, strict
Anglo-Christian values.  He just happens to be a
conservative artist instead of a conservative
investment banker." (p. 54)

Nota bene--of course, those Pynchonian texts are NOT
all about the food stamps, just a bit of synecdoche
(?) there.  Figure o' speech.  And before anyone goes
off half-cocked (much elss ends up cold-cocked) be
careful to take into account not only just how the
word "conservative" is both being and not necessarily
being used here, but also the source ...

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