Pynchon as propaganda

[jbor]

on 17/4/03 11:29 AM, s~Z at keithsz at concentric.net wrote:

> I just don't get this contradiction that you see, and I keep puzzling over
> it. 

Don't worry about it then. I've explained it as clearly as I can.

> It's like you think that people who believe in life after death don't
> hate the fuck out of dying and don't mourn and wear black and cry and moan
> and feel incredible pain and even a sense of finality alongside having faith
> that somewhere down the line there'll be a happy eternal nonending.

Gee thanks. It's not what I think, and it's not what I've said. It's
actually pretty insulting to me. But you knew that.

best

> Not to
> go on and on about my personal life, but I was reared in a fundamentalist
> sect, and funerals were incredibly sad and painful events, with an
> incredible sense of finality. Even with the hope of eternal life no one was
> happy about death, and everyone I knew did everything possible to hold onto
> whatever to make it through the night. Even when I was in the midst of
> believing all of that shit, I would not have had any problem with the way
> the chaplain's passage was written, and would not have seen it as
> anti-thetical to my faith. And in the Jesus story, He was God and knew his
> crucifixion was going to result in salvation for whosoever will may come and
> that he would be resurrected to glory sitting at the right hand of the
> Father at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and yet he was begging Big Daddy
> to let him off the hook. The cup of death is a bitter drink regardless of
> what comes next.
>