"Orwellian, dude!"

[barbara100 at jps.net]

"Specific predictions are only details, after all.
What is perhaps most important, indeed necessary, to a
working prophet, is to be able to see deeper than most
of us into the human soul.      "

So what he's ridiculing Bob and Ted for then is not delving deep enough. For
missing the "more important" "corruption of [] spirit" and "irresistible
human addiction to power" that Orwell does "get right"?  How's that for a
Pynchonian theme?

But if it were real ridicule on Bob and Ted, I don't think their dialogue
would have been preceded by the seriousness of the recent assault on civil
liberties.

"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!'"

It doesn't fit there unless he thinks Bob and Ted are on to something.  Yes
they're a little shallow, perhaps just immature, but they're on the right
track at least. I'm sure Pynchon likes them. I would say he's even speaking
out to them, in their hep new lingo. But it's with affection, not ridicule.
I think of his tone here as very similar to Orwell's when Pynchon imagines
him whistling that Winston drivel and "enjoy[ing] what we now call pop
culture-- his allegiance, in music as in politics, being to the people."

Can't help but think Pynchon's allegiance is to the people too. Young
Orwellian dudes especially.

Special note to S~z: My point is that from reading the Foreword, I gather
Pynchon is trying to get new 1984 readers to draw correlations between
what's happening in the book and what's happening in their own lives and
systems of government. And being that we're here in the midst of it, reader
and writer alike--circa 2003--I think it's only natural we be drawing the
same correlations as Pynchon does.

Barbara


> "Specific predictions are only details, after all.
> What is perhaps most important, indeed necessary, to a
> working prophet, is to be able to see deeper than most
> of us into the human soul. Orwell in 1948 understood
> that despite the Axis defeat, the will to fascism had
> not gone away, that far from having seen its day it
> had perhaps not yet even come into its own-- the
> corruption of spirit, the irrestible human addiction
> to power, were already long in place, as well-known
> aspects of the third Reich and Stalin's USSR, even the
> British Labour party-- like first drafts of a terrible
> future. What could prevent the same thing from
> happening to Britain and the United States? Moral
> superiority?  Good intentions?  Clean living?"
> -Pynchon, 1984 Foreword
>


 ----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchonoid" <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2003 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: "Orwellian, dude!"


> Sorry for the typos.
>
> > --- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > [...]
>
>
> I find your argument against my interpretation
> quite weak.  I stand by the close reading I provided
> in my earlier post.
>
> Pynchon seems to have a soft spot for the Valley
> Girl/Boy/mall rat,  of a piece with the more
> general concern for children seen throughout his works
> and particularly evident in Vineland. He's not
> ridiculing the "Orwellian, dude!" speakers as much as
> he's celebrating and reversing the stereotype  -- they
> may sound funny, they may see only the easiest-to-spot
> resemblances between the US "circa 2003" and _1984_ ,
> but Pynchon observes that they've hit on the essence
> of things (reading signs of fascism) just as Orwell
> hoped that readers might.
>
>
> > this pair of
> > dim-witted "Bob and Ted" stereotypes
>
> Pynchon treats them rather better than you.
>
>
> > But I agree with the more general point that US and
> > Britain "circa 2003" are
> > not like the Third Reich and Stalinist Russia (or
> > Orwell's Oceania), just as
> > they were not like them in Orwell's "1948".
>
> I haven't offered such a point, of course, and there's
> no need for you to attribute to me something I haven't
> said. In this instance I agree with Pynchon and the
> Valley Boys, that what happened to Germany under
> Hitler and the USSR under Stalin might happen in the
> US or Britain.
>