GR evoking the Vietnam War?

[jbor]

>>> it has already
>>> been said here that some of the war scenes read a lot more like vietnam
> than
>>> like ww II.
>> 
>> What war scenes?

on 22/5/03 12:54 AM, Otto wrote:

> It's like the "Foreword," you cannot omit the actual time in which a text
> has been written.

But this doesn't answer the question. Where are the "war scenes" in the
novel. (It's the absence of such scenes which is significant, in my
opinion.)

The examples you give don't evoke the Vietnam War for me at all.

best


> "Dear Mom. I put a couple of people in Hell today. . ." (537) -- I always
> thought of Vietnam letters here.
> 
> All that reefer madness in GR:
> 
> "(...) some merrymaker has earlier put a hundred grams of hashish in the
> Hollandaise." (244)
> 
> I've once put about an ounce into a honey cake, great success.
> 
> 'Next time we run across that Englishman,' Dzabajew looking curiously at his
> hands on the steering-wheel, 'or American, or whatever he is, find out, will
> you, where he got this shit?' 'Make a note of that,' orders Tchitcherine.
> They both start crackling insanely there, under the tree." (391-392)
> 
> Compare how Neal Stephenson describes a WW-2 GI "encountering" hashish:
> 
> "What is that? Chocolate?" Bobby Shaftoe asks.
> "If it was chocolate," Root says, "that guy wouldn't have taken a Hershey
> bar for it."
> Shaftoe shrugs. "Unless it's shitty chocolate."
> "Or shit!" blurts Private Nathan, provoking incredible hilarity.
> "You heard of Mary Jane?" Root asks.
> Shaftoe--role model, leader of men--stifles the impulse to say, Heard of
> her? I've fucked her!
> "This is the concentrated essence," says Enoch Root.
> "How would you know, Rev?" says Private Daniels.
> The Rev is not rattled. "I'm the God guy here, right? I know the religious
> angle?"
> "Yes, sir!"
> "Well, at one time, there was a group of Muslims called the hashishin who
> would eat this stuff and then go out and kill people. They were so good at
> it, they became famous or infamous. Over time the pronunciation of the name
> has changed--we know them as assassins."
> There is an appropriately respectful silence. Finally, Sergeant Shaftoe
> says, "What the hell are we waiting for?"
> They eat some. Shaftoe, being the highest-ranking enlisted man present, eats
> more than the others. Nothing happens. "Only person I feel like
> assassinating is that guy who sold it to us," he says.
> (Cryptonomicon, Chap. 15, 'Meat')