1984 Foreword "fascistic disposition"

[Terrance]

Paul Nightingale wrote:
> 
> >From Terrance:
> 
> > Cause I don't doubt that Pynchon would condemn the patriot
> > act and all that fascist crap that came after 9-11, but I just don't
> see
> > where he does it.
> 
> Just as Orwell wrote of his own society, and couldn't help but give
> expression to contemporary concerns, then so does Pynchon, directly or
> indirectly. 

He says nothing whatever about 9-11 or the US government response.  

Indirectly? 

Recall that critics were quite certain that P was writing in some kind
of code (ironic allusions to Reagan/1984-speak) in the Slow Learner
Introduction. These critics were wrong. These critical readings were
proven to be absurd and fantastic right here on Pynchon-L. 

Given that he's discussing precisely the kind of situation
> that has come about in the US after 9/11 it's reasonable to infer that
> he expects the reader to make connections. 

But he doesn't discuss the situation here in the USA. Or 9-11. It's not
reasonable to infer that he expect the reader to make the connections.
First, Pynchon has been writing about, warning his readers about,
totalitarianism and fascism since the novel V. 

So it's reasonable to expect that he would say something about the
Patriot Act and the Bush administration's response to 9-11, but he
disappoints those reasonable expectations. If he writes in code or only
indirectly about 9-11 and the aftermath, why? 

The passage we have discussed
> features the word "homeland" which has resonance.

This is the same kind of trap that the readers of the SL Intro fell
into. They assumed that P was using Reagan/1984 speak, but they were
dead wrong. Homeland is a common enough word for one's native land. 


 He writes of "altering
> the landscape" which aptly describes the iconic transformation of what
> used to be the WTC to ground zero. 

Apt? Oh come on, Paul. Homeland and altered landscape should be read as
Patriot Act and 9-11? 


These points have already been made
> by others; it never occurred to me, naïve to the last, that such a
> reading would prove controversial.




 
> However, there is more to it than that. Given Orwell's own interest in
> language, "homeland" is an interesting choice (a) for the peddler of
> political rhetoric and (b) Pynchon himself in this particular passage.
> The linking of "home" and its connotations of the personal, the
> neighbourhood, and "land", which I would argue is a more generalising
> term, invoking the abstraction known as the 'imagined community' - this
> hybrid term might make us think of the way in which we inhabit a
> locality and also something less immediate, the construct known as the
> nation state. Hence the landscape that is altered is also internal, to
> do with the individual's consciousness of who they are, where they
> belong. After all, calls to patriotism are often what chess-players call
> 'a forcing move'.