Pynchon as propaganda

[P. Chevalier]

i have been strucked by the fact that many of Pynchon's important 
characters were never commited in their action; things actually "happened" 
to them (Benny Profane, the human Yoyo, or Slothrop...), and they 
constantly avoid the question of choice. It appears to be more than just a 
narrative strategy allowing the author to throw his characters in crazy 
plots; they act more as anti-Sartrian models, to anti-Sartrian not to be 
Sartrian actually... Pure objects, produced by external events, "sans 
aucune importance collective"...

On the other hand, V. is the exact opposite; actress of her life, always 
involved in the flow of an history she contributes to build; but at the 
same time, she doesn't escape to that dialectical tension between the 
"inert" and her condition of acting and thinking subject. Each time she 
commit herself in the action, she has to pay (or want to pay) a tribute to 
the Inert by becoming matter herself.
I'd like to quote the exact references in Sartre but I haven't my books 
here... I'll be back later with some more convincing arguments, stay tuned!


At 10:58 8/04/2003 -0400, Terrance wrote:


>"P. Chevalier" wrote:
> >
> > I guess it is slightly exaggerated to reduce "V." to that. What I say is
> > that it is quite possible, and even conceptually productive, to read "V."
> > trough that interpretative prism, eventhough many other approaches are
> > equally possible; this reading would be more than a pure exercise of
> > hybridation. The point is that some important themes running through the
> > novel were thematised in Sartre's essays.
> > And I'm sure no quotation is innocent when coming from Pynchon, even when
> > the quotation is satyrical or ironic. The "Italian Fake Book" joke in
> > "Vineland" wasn't innocent either; a Deleuzian reading of Mason and Dixon
> > or Gravity's Rainbow can also make sense.
>
>Of course, but what important themes are you discussing? Nothingness?