Religious Fundamentalism in Orwell and Pynchon

[pynchonoid]

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> can the claim be
> made that Pynchon
> believes Orwell's Oceania evokes the U.S.A.
> post-9/11? This, after all, *is*
> the claim which is being made

 The issue under discussion has been whether or not
Pynchon's Foreword evokes 9-11 and the post-911 scene
-- you've shifted that quite a bit in your formulation
above.  If you want to talk about whether or not
"Pynchon believes Orwell's Oceania evokes the U.S.A.
post-9/11?"  that's a different issue.

> Do the
> society and experience
> depicted in _1984_ truly evoke life in America since
> 9/11, or "circa 2003"?
> For anyone? 

There are some parallels. Bush has thousands of people
secretly detained at present, without due process of
law, as potential enemies of the State.  Bookstore and
library records are being investigated to learn what
people are reading, in order to identify more
potential enemies of the State. Bush has launched a
never-ending war on "terrorism". The distance has
never been greater -- and it's growing larger --
between a small group of  ultra-rich and the rest of
the people, with a steadily increasing number of
people living in poverty. 

, and it's being made,
> even if only by a
> certain lunatic fringe hereabouts, in order to
> assert that America really is
> just like Oceania and Bush really is just like Big
> Brother.

Puff that Straw Man up real big now, then knock him
down. 

But don't kid yourself, nobody has made these claims.



=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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