SLSL Intro (A Couple-Three Bonzos

[calbert at hslboxmaster.com]

"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."

I find this praise kind of "faint" and again of a more general nature than
the more detailed criticisms he offers.


"But he doesn't set it out against _V._ at all,"

No, I did........primarily because I find TSI and COL49 too dissimilar for
the purposes of comparative analysis. This may be because I am blind to
nuanced "technical" issues at work.

" and it's not a matter of
whether or not he made "progress".

I would disagree, as he speaks in the context of his movement along his
learning curve.

" 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."

As a matter of accuracy I would suggest that he is in fact discussing, not
the two works, but, the "different" writers who were responsible for each.

"In what way are his criticisms of _Lot49_ "glib"?"

Here is the alpha and omega on his "forensic examination" -


"The next story I wrote  was 'The Crying of Lot 49', which was marketed as
a 'novel', and in which I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I
had learned up till then."

Voluminous? Detailed? Exhaustive? Transpicacious?

So "glib" it is, then.....

"Haha. I did wonder if that poison dart about "bleeding hearts" was fired in
my direction!"

Far from poisoned dart actually...Am I mistaken in sensing a shift in your
perspective over the past half decade or so? A developing skepticism not
unlike that voiced in the cite?

"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."

That is twice I've been charged with "un-apt-itude" in just this
affair.....I don't think there needs to be a "reversal" or "repudiation" -
I think what is at work is a growing understanding that the dynamics of
power taint pretty much ALL human intercourse, regardless of what may
originally inform the motivation. I doubt there is anything but consensus
across this list about the merits of either civil right or anti-racism, but
I think even you will now more readily acknowledge that concern for such is
not the exclusive province of the port side of the philo/political
spectrum. I fail to see how it is so controversial to suggest that the
search for solutions , though still motivated by a soft heart, takes a more
pragmatic track as one is afforded the opportunity to assess the results of
various experiments.   

>> 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)

Does this not say that those who " deplore them (racial differences)" the
most are the ones whose interests may be served by perpetuating their
primacy in the "hierarchy of misery"? If so, then this does indeed suggest
that he is somewhat cynical of a least some part of what has traditionally
been termed " the movement"? I find that there is some sense of this in
Vineland, in the recitation of the history of the Hollywood labor
struggles, where the Sasha generation seems subject to the very same petty
urges which drive the will to power among the "select"... 

"Anyway, I intended no goring, but was interested in what your reply would
be."

I've tasted the "point" and that clearly wasn't it.  I don't doubt you will
tell me exactly what is on your mind when you address me.

" 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."

Let me assure you that my principal premise is that this is a marked
departure from his habit......

"Even so,I still haven't read anything to convince me that intentional
dissimulation played any part in Pynchon's writing of the 'Intro'."

As if a notorious list dick swinger like you would ever yield :-)....


love,
cfa



best


--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .