Bolingbroke Down in the Dumps

[The Great Quail]

Reset Masks writes,

> By the time we get to "The Secret
> Integration" Pynchon has Learned something about these
> things and by the time we get Marvy up on the
> train/screen and Malcolm in GR and Dixon punching a
> slave driver, he has learned quite a lot. I'm not sure
> if Pynchon ever succeeds with a Black character.

First of all, I do agree that Pynchon has never written a fully convincing
American black character; he seems to load them with a deliberate but ironic
stereotypical weight -- Washington's slaves, the Malcolm X crew from GR, and
so on. It's not like you get the impression that Pynchon says, "Well, I'm
going to really attempt to get inside the head of a impoverished black
character." Which is fine for me, as Pynchon is an affluent white male. I
don't expect Toni Morrison to crank out an Edith Wharton novel, either.

(This is not to say a good writer cannot stray from "what they know." Only
that I don't expect them to, and it's not that easy.)

But to take some issue with Terrence's statement:

1. I don't see much "unlearned" or inherently racist with Bolingbroke. So
he's a black night watchman at a dump, wears a porkpie hat, drinks, and is
paranoid about gypsies. How is that racist? It's not like guys like him
don't exist. He might be a touch stereotypical, but so is Pig Bodine.

2. Quaker Dixon punches a slave driver -- that's a historical fact, and I
wouldn't single it out with any real anti-racist significance. To me, it
says more about Dixon's character than about Pynchon's growth as an
anti-racist writer. I think the scathing indictment of slavery in general in
M&D speaks volumes more; and this stems from Pynchon's general sense of
humanity rather than any overt attempt to grapple with black stereotypes....

--Quail

PS: I have read some Derrida, but I prefer Lyotard and Foucault. Perhaps he
suffers from translation, but I don't find "Of Grammatology" a very easy go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth:
http://www.TheModernWord.com

"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each
event -- in the living act, the undoubted deed -- there, some unknown
but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from
behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!
How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?"
     --Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"