Pynchon and fascism

[jbor]

on 30/5/03 9:28 PM, Paul Nightingale wrote:

> I would describe my reading of the Foreword as an
> attempt at an open reading. I set out to explain how the text worked
> (what I have called analysis).

I guess this is where I come up against the same issue again. I think that
"how the text works" is a matter of interpretation as much as "what the text
means". For example, mentioning Orwell's real name works as a standard
biographical opening. At least, it can, and for me it does in this
particular instance. I think that a reader or critic can present a "closed"
version of "how the text works" as easily as another presents a "closed"
version of "what the text means". It goes back to my initial assertion that
the two things, analysis and interpretation, the "how" and the "what" of the
text, aren't really separable, that they are part of a process.

I'll copy below what you wrote about Pynchon's use of the word "fascism" in
the Foreword. I think there's an awful lot of "what" going on in your
commentary - interpretation of what the text "means" - and some significant
omissions in regard to the "how" - analysis of how the text "works". Above
and beyond just tracking the mentions of the term "fascism" you can't, if
you're looking at "how the text works", you can't just ignore the way this
term has been juxtaposed with other terms and phrases and descriptions.

For example, in the paragraph on ix, after making the distinction between
"real and phony antifascism", Pynchon quotes Orwell's 1947 statement that
every serious work he wrote "since 1936" was written "*against*
totalitarianism and *for* democratic socialism, as I know it." This
quotation sets up a connection between "totalitarianism" (Orwell's word) and
both "phony antifascism" (the Soviet-sponsored Communists in Spain, and thus
Stalinism), and "the Left" (British Labour), as well as the specific
reference to Franco's Nationalists.

These connections are picked up again in the following paragraph: "the
'official Left' ... the British Labour Party ... the Communist Party under
Stalin." Again the term "fascist" is directly related to these three things.

The reference to "those of fascistic disposition" follows, and then the
paragraph ends with a reference to "Churchill's war cabinet". I'm still not
certain who "those of fascistic disposition" are meant to be, but
"Churchill's war cabinet" was a coalition which comprised British Labour
Party ministers, and Pynchon reinforces the point in the following paragraph
where he explicitly mentions British Labour's "participation in ... a
repressive, Tory-led government."

That briefly summarises my analysis of the same sequence of text as you
discuss below. In itself it is functioning as part of the whole text, and
can't really be divorced from the rest and dissected - analysed - on its
own. But what is clear is that there is cohesion from one paragraph to the
next, that more oblique references are reiterated and spelt out more
precisely in what follows. I don't come to anything like the same
conclusions that you do in your final paragraph below, and to me what you've
written there seems to be almost entirely "interpretation", as you describe
it, rather than "analysis". In my reading, the relationship between the govt
and the electorate is brought up in the references to the "working classes"
or "masses" being "sold out" on p. ix, and that Orwell's political activism
is still foregrounded on pp. x-xi ("perpetual dissident ... his letters and
articles ... particularly annoyed with the widespread allegiance to
Stalinism" &c), and that the "shift" you detect isn't really borne out by
what's presented in the text.

I do agree with much else that you've written, about the Leavisite approach
and privileged readings and the like.

> There is plenty of room for other readers
> to explore it for themselves.

But, it seems, only within the framework which you have proposed for "how
the text works", which I view as a type of Leavisitism in disguise. I prefer
to allow readers room to explore for themselves both "how the text works"
and "what the text means". In fact, I don't see how you can prescribe the
one and then claim that the reader has any real freedom to do the other.
(I'm tempted to use the neologism "fascistic" in a loose and somewhat inapt
way here, which I fear is what Pynchon does in the essay, but shall
refrain.) Anyway, thanks for the discussion.

best


> Anyway, the references:
> 
> "... the difference between real and phony antifascism" (ix)
> specifically in Spain (but the distinction of course has a wider
> application than that). Commitment to a principle vs a pose.
> 
> Hence O's view of the Official Left/Labour Party "as potentially, if not
> already, fascist" (ix) because it only pretended to fight against
> capitalist: "... professing" (ie political rhetoric) vs "in reality
> concerned only with ..." eg Parliamentary politics.
> 
> In the first two references above, then, the pose adopted by phonies and
> Official Left masks a commitment to something other than socialism, the
> pursuit of power as an end in itself. Political activity that serves a
> goal (socialism) vs political activity that is/becomes its own goal
> (achieving power, then keeping it).
> 
> Time out ... and a story that features two Labour politicians of the
> time. Ernest Bevin (working-class, on the right of the Party) has
> clashed with Stafford Cripps (from an upper-class background, on the
> left). Cripps says: "You and I, Ernie, have one thing in common - we're
> both traitors to our class".
> 
> Then, "those of fascistic disposition" are juxtaposed to "merely those
> who remain all too ready to justify any government action" (ix). Hence
> the latter are not necessarily fascist, although their acquiescence will
> lead them to support/justify fascist measures, even if they don't
> recognise said measures as being fascist.
> 
> Finally, Churchill's cabinet might act "no differently than a fascist
> regime" (x). Note that P does not say the cabinet was fascist, simply
> that its actions might, on occasion, be so described.
> 
> In the first two refs, P discusses the pursuit of power; in the latter
> two refs, the way power might be exercised. In the latter refs we can
> distinguish between the individual whose mindset is always 'fascist' as
> opposed to anything else (assuming such a person exists) and the fascist
> gesture or act that an individual (or govt) might choose (or which might
> be the result of their actions). Hence the discussion has moved from
> political activism per se to the relationship between govt and
> electorate.
> 
>