Pynchon and fascism

[Paul Nightingale]

jbor wrote:
> 
> on 2/6/03 12:39 AM, Paul Nightingale at isread at btopenworld.com wrote:
> 
> > However, it is "Churchill" that qualifies ie identifies "war
cabinet";
> > just as "fascist" qualifies ie identifies the kind of regime
juxtaposed
> > to the war cabinet. Those qualifications are what make the sentence
> > significant.
> 
> In your interpretation of it, perhaps. The way I see it, it's the war
> cabinet rather than Churchill which is significant, linking both
backwards
> and forwards to Pynchon's main topic in the section, which is Orwell's
> perception of the British Labour Party's rationale as an example of
"phony
> antifascism".
> 

I guess this is one we'll have to agree to differ on (although I
certainly agree, as I've said many times, on the importance of O's
perceptions in this section).

> > Hence, to say that one is synonymous with the other doesn't do
> > full justice to the careful way P has constructed the paragraph.
> 

Just to remind the reader here ... my statement immediately above
("Hence ...") refers to jbor's statement to the effect that "a fascist
regime" is rendered synonymous, in the text, with "a repressive Tory-led
govt": I dispute that. Given the editing in the current post, it might
appear that we're still commenting on the juxtaposition of "Churchill's
war cabinet" to "a fascist regime". In what has been edited out I
suggest that "a repressive ... govt" refers to that juxtaposition as a
whole and the way it has been framed.

Anyway, to continue ...

> Sure it's more subtle than my cursory analysis revealed, but at least
I'm
> making a move towards acknowledging the subtleties rather than simply
> connecting up the repetitions of the word "fascist" to try and make
out
> that
> Pynchon is calling Churchill one. Which, of course, he isn't.
> 

A little unfair, I think. I have previously made it quite clear that my
outline reading was no more than that, designed in the first instance to
deal with a specific issue, whether we should discuss the question, does
O think Churchill a fascist?

Repeatedly, it seems, you are happy to deny the way in which I have
elaborated my argument on that score. Indeed, my cursory analysis, to
borrow your phrase, implicitly acknowledged the importance of taking
into account the more developed reading you added subsequently. I could
not have summarised the passage as I did without doing so.

Furthermore, I have clearly stated, more than once, what my aim was in,
as you somewhat dismissively suggest, just connecting up repetitions.
You imply that I want to argue that P is calling Churchill a fascist. I
think I can fairly say that's nonsense. The point of an exchange is to
develop arguments and move the discussion on. I don't see how we can do
that if you refuse to acknowledge what I'm saying.

> > What you describe as "weak modality" above is P writing in the
present
> > tense for the first time in the Foreword.
> 
> Sorry, "could" isn't present tense. The word "can" is. In this
instance
> "could" is a modal verb. A weak one.
>
 
Agreed if we're simply talking about the word "could" in isolation.
However, P uses this particular construction when speaking, in this
paragraph, in the present tense, for the first time in the Foreword and
significantly so. If the phrase "could certainly argue" remains
ambiguous, ie it could refer to a past-tense construction, I think my
reading is supported by "had behaved" following it. The fact that,
grammatically speaking, could is a modal verb, is surely less important
than its function in context, the way the paragraph as a whole works in
the context of the Foreword as a whole. At the top of this post, you
emphasise the big picture, P's "main topic in this section". Here, you
seem to deny the big picture, the way the paragraph as a whole works.