SLSL Intro: poorly written?

[Otto]

Still not convinced that the essays are poorly written. There have been (and
still are) these "real, invisible class force fields in the way of
communication" between left intellectuals, students, novelists on one side
and workers on the other, while both groups should be on one side, opposing
the ruling power elite, that "succession of the criminally insane" (18.33),
as he calls that "elite" later, which benefits from racial as well as from
social communications problems.

Pynchon is not at all "confusing" here, he's pretty clear in pointing out
that given assumptions (idiocy versus competence) might be turned upside
down when it comes to practical matters. The workers/soldiers/sailors always
saw it this way and I think if demonstrations (lots of them) misunderstood
by the common people. That is the communication problem.

Beat, post-Beat and Hippies spoke to their equals but not to the ones they
claimed they were speaking for, who, additionally, hadn't asked for that
kind of representation.

Pynchon in 1984 is able to understand because he has been part of both sides
in the past.

Otto

----- Original Message -----
From: "tyro tortoise" <tyrotortoise at yahoo.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 5:37 AM
Subject: Re: SLSL Intro: poorly written?


>
> --- Tim Strzechowski <dedalus204 at attbi.com> wrote:
> >
> > I guess I'd need to see exactly where you find
> > Pynchon "confusing the
> > reader" to better address the questions you raise
> > and figure out if it's the
> > readers fault for said confusion.
>
> I've already mentioned the sentence that begins page
> 12 ("It may yet...).
>
> I think we got stuck on this sentence because its
> confusing and it doesn't belong to the paragraph.
>
> Example 2
>
> "The success of the 'New Left' later in the '60's was
> to be limited by the failure of the 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 Introduction 7.10-15
>
>
>
> Why are we stuck on this passage?
> It's an interesting passage. The debate about it here
> has been interesting too. But, like the passage about
> race and power, it doesn't quite fit in this
> paragraph. It's also an example of poor writing.
>
> What is this comment about the "new left" doing in
> this paragraph? It's confusing.
>
> Pynchon has been talking about Lowlands. Reflecting on
> the story as an older man, with clarity and
> middle-aged tranquility,
> he is attracted to the class angle. He says that
> peacetime service (Pynchon served in the Navy during
> peacetime) can provide an "excellent introduction to
> the structure of society at large." In the Navy
> Pynchon discovers that the older, college educated,
> Brass are often idiots and that the working-class
> white hats, while in theory capable of idiocy, are
> much more apt to display competence. Lardass  Levine's
> conflict in the story is about where to put his
> loyalties. Pynchon says he was an "unpolitical"
> student in the 1950s and was not aware of this at the
> time, but reflecting on the story now (on the
> interesting class struggle in the story) he says that
> it was dilemma that most writers of the time were
> dealing with.
> He goes on to talk about this dilemma at its simplest
> level - language. He says writers were encouraged from
> many directions -- Keruac, Beats, Roth, Bellow, and
> Gold. These writers expanded the possibilities. Next,
> he says that the writers in his generation did not
> grope after synthesis. He thinks that perhaps they
> should have.
> The next sentence is the one that has caused us so
> much trouble.
> Why is this sentence in this paragraph? Pynchon
> suddenly skips into a vague invisible class force
> field in the way of communication and the 1960s.
>
> "The success of the 'New Left' later in the '60's was
> to be limited by the failure of the 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 Introduction 7.10-15
>
> We can try to connect this statement back to the story
> Pynchon is talking about, to issues of class, to the
> Navy as microcosm of the structure of society at
> large, to possibility of language synthesis in
> late1950s literature but it doesn't quite connect. It
> doesn't fit in this paragraph.
>




__________________________________________________________________

Gesendet von Yahoo! Mail - http://mail.yahoo.de
Möchten Sie mit einem Gruß antworten? http://grusskarten.yahoo.de