1984 Foreword

[Terrance]

pynchonoid wrote:
> 
> You're satisfied that most high school kids in the US
> know that the British Empire once conducted an
> international trade in opium?  I guess maybe you don't
> live in the US after all.

Well, since I  actually taught High School in the United States  I can
tell you that a unit on the Opium trade is taught in high school here.
Now, kids may not make the connection to victory gin or to Orwell or the
Bush administration's dealings in Afghanistan, but....I'm sure you have
another point to make here. 

Most of this needless and senseless bickering can end if only you would
stop holding onto two incompatible theories about texts.

 Narrative. Sounds like a simple enough term. 
We use it all the time. But Paul N. has talked about a "narrative." Take
a good look at what he says. 

Text, the words on the page. 

But 

The "text" is an event in time. It is not an object or an ideal entity.
It happens during a coming-together right now over me, a co-penetration
if you don't mind, ooooooshhh here comes the HAY-WHY me, keep it greasy
so it... Slippery sloapidge and rope-a-dopedge, of the reader and the
text. The reader brings to the text his past experiences (9-11, Bush
fascism) and readings and his unique way of looking at things. 


Think about GR. Try to think of the book. There it is sitting there.
It's Gravity's Rainbow. Gravity's Rainbow,  apart from your reading of
it or my reading of it or Pynchon's reading of it, is just a stack of
papers with words inside bound like a novel. 
If you read me the first paragraph of GR I have no doubt that I will
enjoy your reading of it. But it will be different from mine. Won't it?