SLSL Intro: poorly written?

[Tim Strzechowski]

Okay, here goes:

From: "tyro tortoise" <tyrotortoise at yahoo.com>

> 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.

Don't know what to tell ya here.  It makes sense to me, as it obviously
links the "racial differences" suggested by the James Bond and Archie Bunker
references to the "questions of money and power" brought up in his own
fiction, concluding with a bit of TRP on the soapbox about who it is that
keeps certain groups "poor and powerless."  I don't see the confusion.

>
> 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
>

The "failure of college kids and blue-collar workers" to "get together
politically" contrasts sharply with the discussion earlier in the paragraph
about how "two very distinct kinds of English could be allowed in fiction to
coexist."  In terms of paragraph coherence, it makes sense to me (in fact,
questioning how these two sections of the paragraph can operate within the
same paragraph adds a bit of irony to the discussion, no?).

"Real, invisible class force fields" to me relates to those feelings of,
what ... resentment? anger?  whatever ... that exist between folks of
different social strata, whether spoken or not, but present nonetheless.
"Real" because it most certainly exists out there (as is evidenced by the
news of the day and today), "invisible" because it's frequently an unspoken,
"let's pretend it's not there" type of thing (which made the ravings of
Archie Bunker, later, so shockingly real, I suppose), "class" to perhaps
reinforce the differences between the mid-to-upper-class college kids and
the blue-collar workers, and "force fields" to suggest the seemingly
threatening and perhaps cosmic quality to its existence. Also, "force
fields" is a perfectly acceptable phrase within the context of P's writing,
given Pynchon's penchant for sci-fi related events and images.

It's a strange comparison, to be sure, but one that nonetheless makes a
certain amount of sense within the context of the paragraph, at least to
this reader.
>

[ snip lotsa stuff from Tyro ]