SLSL 'Low-lands': racist, sexist and fascist talk

[jbor]

on 9/1/03 2:49 AM, The Great Quail at quail at libyrinth.com wrote:

> But still, I don't really think that Low-lands is all that offensive. And
> Pig Bodine? Well, he's *meant* to be offensive, so I'm not sure why Pynchon
> feels the need to apologize for him....

He apologises for the "narrative voice" ....

But I guess another possibility is that Pynchon is having a sly dig at
"modern" readers in the 'Intro', those trends towards political correctness
or interpretative absurdity which try to read just about anything and
everything into everything .... I don't think this is the case, but ....

Anyway, there is "racist, sexist and proto-Fascist talk" in the story, and
underneath that talk, according to Pynchon in the 'Intro', there lies
racist, sexist and anti-Communist values and attitudes which were "authentic
enough" for the time. Another example of the last-mentioned is the bit about
how the "Feds" rounded up "the Sons of the Red Apocalypse", which is
described as a "terrorist group", in the '30s. Writing in the late 1950s it
seems Pynchon's political viewpoint was under sway of the sort of Cold War
psychocultural legacy which Tolkien has lately (and incorrectly, in my
opinion) been accused of absorbing and transmitting.

best