Foreword, when is a homeland not a homeland?

[Paul Nightingale]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of s~Z
> Sent: 09 May 2003 16:13
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: Re: Foreword, when is a homeland not a homeland?
> 
> >>>That casual use of "zero speculation" indicates that you can read
> without thinking. The Truth just leaps off the page with no effort on
> your part required. I disagree<<<
> 
> Me, too. That is creating straw then disagreeing with it.

You said it. You want to pick and choose as to when "zero speculation"
applies. I'm saying it never does. In what follows below you seem to
want to have it both ways.

> I think probably
> too much when I'm reading, and nothing jumps off the page with no
effort.

Of course not. Thanks for agreeing, however inadvertently.

> None of that follows from what I said originally.
> 
> >>>if you adopt that approach all the time it must limit your reading
> matter
> severely.<<<
> 
> I don't, so it doesn't. You are generalizing from my thoughts about
one
> passage.

No, I'm commenting on what you offer as a way to read a given passage,
which is not quite the same thing.

> 
> >>> To read is to speculate. <<<
> 
> To varying degrees depending on what is being read at any given time.
> 
> >>>One definition of good writing is the degree to which the reader
must
> speculate to draw out a range of possible meanings. <<<
> 
> The broader the better as far as I'm concerned. That's why I find the
9/11
> reading too narrow.

The problem is, you focus on that one part of one passage, a few lines
only. I've repeatedly said we should consider the function of that
passage in the whole, for example the way in which P. goes from Orwell's
writing to the contemporary world. I'm sure you could pick a few lines
from GR, quote them out of context, and say what's the deal.

> 
> >>>In fact, you then go on to say you "prefer" to read the passage in
a
> particular way, which indicates that some thinking has taken place and
> you have made a decision, consciously or otherwise, to reject one
> reading in favour of another.<<<
> 
> yes.

So again "zero speculation" has never been an option.

> I reject the 9/11 reading and choose a more general interpretation. I
> first read Gravity's Rainbow during the Gulf War in 1991. It blew me
away
> watching the news accounts of the war and reading GR. I couldn't put
it
> down. The connections were astonishing. TRP gets at the complexity of
the
> dynamics of things like few other writers. This makes his writings
> applicable to many situations. Again, this 1984 essay could have been
> written, as is, had 9/11 never happened. It's more universal than
9/11.

Of course it is. I've said that many times. Moreover, I agree that P
"gets at the complexity of the dynamics of things" - I've stated quite
clearly that I think his writing elusive in the sense that it cannot be
pinned down and reduced to a single meaning. In fact, if "meaning" there
= interpretation, then I would argue that P's writing defies
interpretation. It's about the way we read and how we know, and that
makes his work especially appealing to the kind of critical approach I'm
interested in. But to include 9/11 as one possible allusion in a passage
of a few lines is not to pin the writing down and deny the qualities
that make it worth reading in the first place.

Finally, to s~Z personally: As I finish this post, I've just read "It's
About AMERICA + lots of exclamation marks". I hope you'll come down off
the ceiling and have the good grace to accept that what you've written
there isn't even a travesty (it's not that close) of the reading I've
offered here and elsewhere. Please get serious.