"Orwellian, dude!"

[Dave Monroe]

Assuming that somehow I'm being included as one of
"those" (me? Doug? Paul N.? Otto? Tim?) first off, let
me point out that arguing with "us" as

--- s~Z <keithsz at concentric.net> wrote:
> >>> Those trying to turn the Foreword into an
> anti-Bush jeremiad do it very little justice. <<<

This is hardly my argument here, nor do I much see it
as anyone else's.  Keep in mind, however, that there
are entire subject headings I ignore here in the
interests of time, patience, and keeping my inbox
clear so as to keep space open for ever more items for
me to delete, but ... but arguing with me, for
starters, as if you are concurrently arguing with Doug
(or vice versa) does "very little justice" to anything
either of us has to say (and I've found myself in
general agreement with Paul N., Otto, Tim, and, on
occasion, even Robt. here, off the top of my head). 
Of course, writing off the "foreword" as "badly"
written, as containing "shitty" writing, not only does
it outright injustice, but also forestalls any serious
consideration of it, but ...

But that the "Foreword" takes along the way a critical
take on the doing of the U.S. government, that's
hardly unobvious (most obviously in re: the Depts. of
Defense and Justice).  That there are reasonable,
well, reasons to consider it as casting apsersions on
the current administration, that seems to be what's in
contention here, but, again, my contention is, it's
hardly unreasonable to read it as such ...
 
> And those who reduce the arguments of you and others
> as arguing for argument's sake are not doing justice
> to some very well thought out readings (e.g., the
> one snipped above by jbor) and are naively arrogant
> about the obviosity of their readings.

This akin to the "naive arrogance" of "those"
claiming, if not necessarily the obviousness of their
readings, the unreasonablity, unboviousness, outright
wrongness, whatever, of others'?  This, by the way, is
the real red herring here, this bickering over
"obviousness."  Obviously (...), no one here is
saying, hey, through painstaking decryption, I've
determined the heretofore unbroken code which unocks
the secret of the "Foreword" here.  For my part, my
argument has been that, given the contexts for the
text at hand, it's hardly far-fetched to read it as
alluding (or whatever you want to call it) to
contextual events, here, the destruction of the WTC,
the response of the U.S. govt. thereto, and the
response in certain quarters to said response.  This
among many other things, but certainly possible,
plausible and, hey, maybe even probable nonetheless
...  

In a time where the exercise of a Constutionally
guaranteed right to dissent, out loud, in print, in
public, paradoxically now often leads (and has often
led) to aspersions cast on one's "patriotism" (what's
more "American," theoretically, at least, that
dissent?), those comments about the DOD/DOJ (which
certainly COULD have been made at an earlier time,
esp. ca. GR, where Pynchon's general disposition
towards the Nixon administration is fairly clear),
made nontheless in as much of a "now" as book
publishing generaly allows, only strengthen the case
that, hey, there might be something rather less tahn
positive being implied about not only previous
administrations, but the current one as well ...

But, further, hell, authorial intention be damned,
given the current state of affairs here, now, where
"we must give up our freedoms in order to defend them"
((c) The Onion), it'd be pretty difficult to have
published much of any of that "Foreword" without
someone somewhere, and, again, quite reasonably,
reading it as somehow, somewhere (determinations of
reasonability here perhaps being dependent on certain
of one's own disposition ...) commenting, a-and
perhaps critically, even, on both governemnt and
popular response to recent/current events, without
expecting someone to, even ...

Pynchon's famed/perceived/whatever circumspection does
not thus "obviously," as some may or may not have 
implied (okay, DID imply) here, lead to the line of
reasoning, well, if he didn't just come right out and
SAY it, means he didn't MEAN it.  Coming right out an
just plain saying something hardly being his modus
operandi, no matter what you take said MO actually to
be.  And circumspect he is to some degree in that
"Foreword" as well, but hardly to the degree of in- to
outright, er, undeterminancy that seems to be being
argued here.  And when it comes to Affairs of State,
matters political, well, there's nigh unto a demand
for circumspection, at best, in the air ...

At any rate, you hardly have to agree Charles
Hollander's take on the matter, but he has taken this
as a central concern in reading Pynchon ...  

http://www.vheissu.be/art/art_eng_49_hollander.htm

And rightly so.  I take the Question Concerning
Pynchonlogy to be, "What the ...?"  I keep finding
myself finding such moments to be nigh unto
Rorschachian, involving a certain Pynchonian
Indeterminacy Principle indeed, in which the observer
indeed has not a little something to do with the
measurements, and calling into question any objective,
authoritative reading.  "Yours," mine, anyone's, right
up to an including Pynchon's putative "authorial
intent."  This situation one (e.g., me) might take as
the result of conflicting, or, at any rate, not
necesarily commensurate factors, as the resultant of n
array of divergent vectors ...

Hollander, again, in his own way also takes this as an
essential concern ... 

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/inferno.htm

But I've no intention of bickering over Hollander as
well here, so ...

So, anyway, before you set up any straw men, much less
a genralized Straw Man ...

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com