"fascistic disposition" paragraph

[Paul Nightingale]

I think anyone who has bothered to follow this exchange of views (over
several different threads, involving several different people) has had
ample opportunity to work out what I've written and what I mean (as
opposed to what others say I've written/mean). In the interests of
brevity I'll make a couple of points (and apologise to anyone who has
already had more than enough of this nonsense) and then leave it. If
anyone wants to have the final word and yell victory, fine.

>From jbor:

> 
> Your argument here is that there is a definite (intentional) and
specific
> allusion to 9/11.

On this occasion I think the allusion intentional, yes. It doesn't
matter one way or the other.

> Readers who don't "notice" it are somehow deficient in
> their reading.

This does not follow. Nuff said.
> 
> You originally stated that "the paragraph in question is perfectly
clear".
> But to make your case you've asserted that the phrase "'bombs falling'
> serves as a general term" which applies to the situation of
> "planes-flying-into-large-buildings". Unhappily it doesn't, and the
> connection to 9/11 is far from "perfectly clear" in the actual text.

In fact I think the explanation I offered of how I think this passage
works is pretty detailed and extensive, more so than many others are
prepared to offer on this list. People here are better at being negative
than they are at offering anything in its place.
> 
> In another post you made the statement that allusions don't need to be
> intentional -

Of course not -

> which is a slightly different proposition to the one above.

How? It's hardly radical to point out that the writer doesn't
necessarily intend every meaning their text offers. Again, nuff said.

> I
> don't have a problem with the idea that some readers will make
inferences
> regarding other events and situations from what Pynchon has written.

Well that's a relief. Interesting use of "some readers" there. I suspect
it'll be echoed later on.

> 
> I didn't make any connection to 9/11 when I first read the paragraph
in
> isolation. The term "homeland" figures so frequently in political
rhetoric
> from the '20s, 30s, and WWII, particularly Churchill's ("Jewish
homeland",
> "Nazi homeland" etc), seems a term which derives from that era in
fact,
> that
> it didn't seem at all incongruous (as "nothingness" does in a listing
of
> Christian precepts, for example) to the explicit content of the
paragraph.

Why "incongruous" here?

> When the connection was suggested and supported I considered it and
> thought
> it a reasonable proposition. However, when I finally read the Foreword
in
> full and realised the context in which Pynchon has situated the
paragraph
> it
> appeared highly unlikely that any specific reference to 9/11 was
intended.
> 
Perhaps only one person can tell us if it was intentional. I'm pretty
tired of saying that doesn't matter. Nonetheless, an interesting account
here of how one reads, how meanings can shift. Reading is a dynamic
process such as you describe here - what's then "incongruous" is your
refusal to accept the implications of that, ie accept the possibility of
an open text. Your interpretive approach insists on a closed text.

> Some of the phraseologies which Pynchon uses in the paragraph ("all
this
> sort of thing", "very well, call it whatever you please") seem to
evoke a
> very old-fashioned, British, "pip, pip and jolly ho"-style or tone of
> speech. These turns of phrase are quite distinctive within the essay.
I
> think the shift in the first couple of sentences of the paragraph is
not
> from '30s and '40s Britain to America post-2001, but from straight
> biographal recount to Pynchon's narrative voice adopting, momentarily,
the
> mindset and speech idioms of some of Orwell's detractors from the
time.
>
No need to repeat what I've already said. If you want to run with that
interpretation over the entire essay I'll be interested to read it, of
course. I'm more interested in your distortion of my next paragraph:
 
> > I have deliberately
> > written, above, of "the possibility of a range of readings". I'm
> > intrigued that those who disagree do so by putting forward an
> > interpretation, one that insists a particular meaning is not
possible.
> 
> It seems to me that you are dismissing the reading that the paragraph
in
> question does not specifically allude to 9/11.

I have dismissed nothing of the kind. To accuse me of doing what, in
fact, others have done repeatedly is pretty desperate.

> I can certainly accept that
> you and three or four others have read an allusion to 9/11 into the
> paragraph.

Why play a numbers game here? Does it matter how many ("some") people
have read the passage this way? Or is it, rather, a question of 'who'? I
have no interest in the neverending flamefest that, for many, gives the
p-list its raison d'etre.

> My conclusion is that it is highly unlikely that this "meaning"
> is in fact presented in the text.
>