Pynchon and War

[David Morris]

--- Otto <ottosell at yahoo.de> wrote:
> "(...) children may be taught History as sequences
> of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared
> for the adult world."
> 
<<Sorry David, but this isn't simply a piece of fiction & thus can be dismissed
as such. This is how history has been taught for generations and I really do
see a lot of truth in it.>>

Sure, there is truth in it, but it was never intended to be taken literally,
nor as "truth", the passage Doug cited included.  I think it goes without
saying that Pynchon's fiction doesn't believe in "truth" but in a dynamic of
life and death.   But Doug insists in its literalness because it suits his
pacifism.

<<If I wouldn't think that P. is using fiction to tell us what he thinks & that
it's including some messages ('If you got a message, go to Western Telegraph')
I wouldn't read him so intensive as I do, with all of you for years now. GR
isn't simple entertainment, isn't simply the 70s-pomo-version of "Catch-22," it
is a piece of fiction dealing with conspiracy & paranoia, but that doesn't mean
that people aren't terrorised in the real world too. In the years he wrote it
people in the so-called liberal democracies were regularly beaten up and even
killed by the police for simply some opinion on the war that was going on at
that time. What Pynchon is writing in GR is that children are sold to the war
by the grown-ups, that old men are sending young men to die. This hasn't
changed, and it goes for the Jihad too. I'm thinking of the most recent
terrorist attacks that are increasing ev'ry time some peace proces seems to
begin.>>

GR is a great work of art that deals with many things, and contains a lot of
"true things" many of which are absurd, fantastic and self-contradictory.  If
one were to fasten into his theme of "Analysis" literally one might conclude he
thinks mankind yould never have evolved into a conscious being, which is
absurd, but contains some truth.

David Morris


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