Foreword "An Unwarrantedly Chirpy Analysis"

[Dave Monroe]

"As nearly as one can tell, Orwell considered
anti-Semitism 'one variant of the great modern disease
of nationalism,' and British anti-Semitism in
particular as another form of British stupidity.  He
may have believed that by the time of the tripartite
coalescence of the world imagined for 1984, the
European nationalisms that he was used to somehow no
longer exist, perhaps because nations, and hence
nationalities, would have been abolished and absorbed
into more collective identities.  Amid the novel's
general pessimism, this might strike us, knowing what
we know today, as an unwarrantedly chirpy analysis. 
The hatreds Orwell never found much worse than
ridiculous have determined too much history since 1945
to be dismissed quite so easily." ("Foreword," p.
xviii)

George Orwell, "As I Please" (1947)

"... antisemitism is only one variant of the great
modern disease of nationalism. We know very little
about the real causes of nationalism, and we might
conceivably be on the way towards curing it if we knew
more. But who is sufficiently interested to put up the
thousands of pounds that an exhaustive survey would
cost?" 

http://members.tripod.com/wintermute10/AIP73.htm

Pynchon obviously did his reading here.  Even includes
a short bibliography.  I'll try to get around to a
post of his Orwell citations and their contexts.  But
the questions I'm most immediately interested in are,
why Orwell?  Why Pynchon?  How did this "Foreword"
come about?  Picturing a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup
moment here.  Chocolate bar, meet peanut butter jar. 
Two great tastes.  The historical and political
contextualization is excellent and much appreciated,
but the more specifically "literary" commentary isn't
nearly as revelatory.  About Orwell and 1984 et al.,
at least.  But about Pynchon on the other hand ...  

--- Mutualcode at aol.com wrote:
> 
> But I think that Pynchon might be suggesting some
> less malevolent motivation at work, i.e., to
> portray the disease of nationalism as the greater
> threat to humanity in general....

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