Orwellian dude...was Religious Fundamentalism in ...

[Barbara Bell]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> On the other point, no, I didn't say that people such as yourself who
> believe, from what the text evokes in your reading of it, that Pynchon
does
> intentionally allude to 9/11, are lunatics. It's the lunatic fringe -
Doug,
> primarily - who are using the Foreword to fuel their ongoing propaganda
war
> in claiming that "America really is just like Oceania and Bush really is
> just like Big Brother" (which is what I wrote). Pynchon actually parodies
> this type of in(s)anity in the Foreword:
>
>     "Wow, the Government has turned into Big Brother, *just like
>     Orwell predicted!* Something, huh?" "Orwellian, dude!" (xvi)
>
> best

Is Pynchon really parodying the Owellian dudes there?
"Well yes and no" like he says next. Sure he's poking fun at folks for
making too much of the details of what Orwell "gets right," reverting back
to "Prophecy and prediction are not quite the same" at the beginning of the
paragraph. But "yes and no" is hardly calling it 'lunatic'.  And why does he
bring it up at all, why draw attention to it if he didn't kinda like it when
people said it? I imagine him laughing, "Heh, heh, heh--well yes and no.
Come here and let me tell you about it, little girl."
Oh, sorry, slipped into a fantasy there for a minute.
But he's not ridiculing those who think Big Brother is watching. *He* thinks
Big Brother is watching!
I think he likes the Orwellian dudes, myself.


I just noticed another very 9/11-ish reference:

News is whatever the government says it is, surveillance of ordinary
citizens has entered the mainstream of police activity, reasonable search
and seizure is a joke. And so forth. "Wow, the Government has turned into
Big Brother, just like Orwell predicted! Something, huh?" "Orwellian dude!"

"surveillance of ordinary citizens has entered the mainstream of police
activity"

Sounds very present-day, no?