political polarity and pynchon

[Terrance]

prozak at anus.com wrote:
> 
> well, it's hard to speak as a relative unknown, because most people
> look at what i'm doing and figure my intent is blind provocation or
> insanity.

we ike blind provocation or insanity here. a good dose of it everyday is
what keeps us pithy, withy, and blithesome. 


> 
> but, it seems to me the political topics are the most germaine to
> pynchon as we're going to get outside of reworking the ideas and
> complexities of well-researched pynchon writings. 

 This is just an excuse to keep talking about what's in the newspapers. 
Ike read most of the well-researched critical stuff and it's got nothing
on what people here can do when they want to. that's asking a lot of a
chat room. ain't it? that's what we've got now. so let's not fool
ourselves.  if we can't get people on the same pynchon page, be that a
pynchon novel or essay or critical work, we quickly slide into the abuse
of pynchon passages to support arguments as if the man's books are the
Words of god and we are a bunch of would be saints if only we were all
born when angels still danced on the heads of pins. 

pynchon, writing
> during viet nam about the possibility of end of the world (trés cold
> war, nu?), was writing in many ways about the political split of
> humanity that involved distant symbols and had little to do with the
> task at hand. i believe there was something in V about this, how the
> right is hard facts and the left is all emotion.

are there characters on the left and the right? where would one put
Rachel Owlglass? Rooney? Fina? Stencil? 


> 
> to me, what is interesting ("philosophically") here is that despite
> the vast amount of highly polarized political agreement, most of us
> are coming at it from a liberal perspective. avoid bombing children.
> ensure rights and fairness to all. do the right thing. these kinds of
> grand symbols not only motivate crowds, but also make great framing
> for a movie if one is eventually made on this topic. in such, they
> represent the "pornographies" and "ikons" and "Word"(s) of pynchon's
> writing, at least GR and M&D.

when all else fails bring up the list and it's homogenity/poarity and
make some weak or absurd connection to one of pynchon's novels. 


> 
> does anyone else see a need here to remove politics from the abstract
> and universal and return it to the literal, regardless of the grand
> abstractions, sentiments and phrases we can pronounce?
> 

not me.