SLSL Intro (A Couple-Three Bonzos

[jbor]

on 11/11/02 1:14 AM, calbert at hslboxmaster.com at calbert at hslboxmaster.com
wrote:

> His comments about TSI do provide a contrary example, and I should have
> mentioned it. But here again, he says little about what, in particular
> makes this story of a different quality than the others. He dwells on the
> flaws in some detail, however.

He's also a little more forgiving in regard to 'UTR':

"So if only for its feeble good intentions, I am less annoyed with 'UTR'
than with the earlier stuff. ... the characters are a little better ... Most
of it, happily, is chase scenes ... one piece of puerility I am unable to
let go of .... " (19)

The point isn't that he dwells on the flaws, but that he dwells on both the
flaws and the strengths. Those who read the 'Intro' as frank and open, as I
do, accept that he is being sincere when offering these comments. I was just
interested to know what those who don't read it that way make of the
positive comments and comparisons which Pynchon does make about the stories.

> ....and yes, the slam on COL 49 is dismaying, but I don't consider it the
> "key" to discerning any "intent" with respect to the entire piece,
> primarily because, once again, he is so glib in his dismissal. A fair cop,
> however, is that COL 49 does not illustrate any tangible "progress", in a
> technical sense, over what he put on display in V.

But he doesn't set it out against _V._ at all, and it's not a matter of
whether or not he made "progress". He contrasts it with 'TSI'. And, in fact,
he confesses to having gone backwards ("up and down shape of my learning
curve" etc) from the "positive and professional direction" evident in that
story. In what way are his criticisms of _Lot49_ "glib"?

> But honestly, I anticipated a comment on the "money and power" citation. I
> believe that you have some insight in that regard.

Haha. I did wonder if that poison dart about "bleeding hearts" was fired in
my direction! But I think you've jumped the gun on the quote about "racial
differences", which he sets out as a theme which is more important to his
work, though perhaps not more important in general terms as "questions of
money and power".

I think that if there was such a huge change in his pro-civil rights and
anti-racism stances from the mid '60s, as documented in 'TSI' and the
'Watts' essay, for example, to the early 80s (cfa: "seems our boy went from
5 Towns 'white trash' to hardened pragmatist WITHOUT spending an awful lot
of time as a 'radical humanitarian'") then I'd be expecting to find
corroborating evidence elsewhere in his fiction and non-fiction. That there
isn't any makes me think that the Goad-like interpretation which you're
claiming for the sentence isn't apt.

As I wrote in response to Dave Monroe yesterday:

> [...] I don't 
> think you can so easily avoid the global context which Pynchon has brought in
> here: "John Kennedy's role model James Bond was about to make his name by
> kicking third-world people around ... " (p.11) Third-world people, almost
> without exception, might be described as being "racially" "different".
> 
> I'm much more comfortable reading that "us" as an all-inclusive, global
> category, rather than just a reference to US society and politics. But I'm not
> 100% sure about it, and open to persuasion.
> 
>> It may turn out that racial differences are not as
>> basic as questions of money and power, but have served
>> a useful purpose, often in the interest of those who
>> deplore them most, in keeping us divided and
>> relatively poor and powerless. (p.12)

Anyway, I intended no goring, but was interested in what your reply would
be. There do seem to be two camps on this issue of whether or not to take
the 'Intro' at face value, but I think that those who are arguing for the
negative have widely varying reasons and motivations for doing so. Even so,
I still haven't read anything to convince me that intentional dissimulation
played any part in Pynchon's writing of the 'Intro'.

best