SLSL Intro "Chicago School"

[jbor]

on 8/11/02 9:15 PM, barbara100 at jps.net at barbara100 at jps.net wrote:

> In being "an unpolitical 50's student" working out a dilemma, I think he
> means becoming aware of and working through the political, societal, and
> sexual dilemmas of 50s culture.

Yes. Through his writing. (I.e. in 'The Small Rain", which was his first
published story and the topic he has been discussing for the previous two
pages.)

> Yes, it's all wrapped around his writing
> experience, but between the lines he's talking about his transition into 60s
> hippy culture. 

No, he never identifies himself as a part of '60s "hippie" culture.

> Too old perhaps to flood in body and soul, but he definitely
> felt a connection.

He critiques the hippies just as he critiques his own Beat/post-Beat college
days (bottom of p9). He notes a similarity ("nostalgia") between the two
eras, and describes this in terms of the "sane and decent affirmation of
what we all want to believe about American values" both movements or eras
represented. I think these values are pretty mainstream ones, like freedom
of speech, democracy, inclusiveness, civil rights, not calling in the
Gestapo when someone writes a limerick etc. The fact that he notes that this
sense of affinity with the hippies only lasted "for a while, anyway" is
another pretty clear reminder of his disillusionment with the direction the
student radical movement took in the late '60s.

best


> The "unpolitical 50's student" passage begins on the "class angle" and ends
> two paragraphs later on his lament that the success of the "new left" was
> 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." (SLSL,
> 6 -7)
> I'm more convinced than ever reading his Introduction that Pynchon's as
> Green as Northern California in the spring.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 12:33 PM
> Subject: Re: SLSL Intro "Chicago School"
> 
> 
>> on 8/11/02 3:53 AM, pynchonoid at pynchonoid at yahoo.com wrote:
>> 
>>> ...TRP calls himself an "unpolitical '50s student" in
>>> this Intro...
>> 
>> At the time he wrote 'The Small Rain', his first story. He then details
> his
>> burgeoning awareness of political and aesthetic trends which were going on
>> all around.
>> 
>> The full quote:
>> 
>> "Being an unpolitical '50's student I was unaware of this at the time -
> but
>> in hindsight I think I was working out of a dilemma that most of us then
>> had, in some way, to deal with." (p6)
>> 
>> What he's saying is that he wasn't consciously aware of the inherently
>> political aspect to writing, though he was still responding to this
>> "dilemma" as he began to write.
>> 
>> best
>> 
> 
>