Pynchon and fascism

[Paul Nightingale]

s~Z wrote:
> 
> 
> >>>However, does what you write function as analysis, as an account of
how
> the passage works? You summarise the passage and describe a series of
> narrative points (or moments, perhaps). Nowhere do you account for the
> shape of the passage: which is not, I think, to interpret, ie to say
> what it means, but a way of highlighting (as Foucault would have it)
the
> relations between statements.<<<
> 
> How can you highlight the relations between statements without first
> having
> an interpretation of what the statements mean? Seems to me
interpretation
> precedes shape designation, and the shape any given reader highlights
is
> dependent upon their interpretation of the meaning of the components
> highlighted.
> 

Well yes, any reading, however banal, is a learned activity. So I'm not
saying you bring nothing to the text; on the contrary you bring an awful
lot of cultural baggage. However, I think what we're talking about here
is methodology. Let me go back to the passage in question. I wrote of a
certain relationship between the following two statements:

"Orwell ... had quickly learned the difference between real and phony
antifascism"

and:

 "... the 'official Left', meaning basically the British Labour Party,
most of which he had come, well before the Second World War, to regard
as potentially, if not already, fascist".

To say that I look for the way writing is structured, the way A is
juxtaposed to B is a methodological issue. I don't have to do this; I
could approach the text in many different ways. However, I look at these
two statements, P discussing O's attitude, P reading O reading the way
political organisations going about their business; I notice a
connection, to do with the distinction between real and phony
antifascists, on the one hand, and the official as opposed to dissident
left on the other. I make no judgement about whether or not O was
justified. I make no judgement about P's own views, how far he agrees
with O. I don't even need to have an opinion on fascism, which for the
purposes of this exercise, to make the point, is just another signifier
(given that I'm talking about the way I read, not making a judgement
about, eg, fascism).

So where have I interpreted anything? Where have I decoded the passage
and tried to tell you what it means? I wrote previously: "In the first
two references [to fascism] P discusses the pursuit of power." jbor (and
you also?) say that is an act of interpretation. I prefer to say it's a
summary based on the juxtaposition of two statements, identifying what
those two statements have in common (and then going on to juxtapose this
couplet of statements with the couplet that follows). I describe the way
in which the text works, the way in which P organises his writing. My
starting point is a methodological decision to highlight such
oppositions/juxtapositions: I think that's not the same as saying I
start with interpretation, ie make a judgement of what the text means,
and then base my analysis on that.