Pynchon and fascism

[jbor]

>>>> Selecting some things and not others from the text as "significant" and
> then
> setting them against one another is an act of interpretation, call it what
> you will. But, as I've said, it's not a bad thing. It's what all of us do
> when we read. Thanks again.<<<

on 31/5/03 11:45 AM, s~Z at keithsz at concentric.net wrote:

> I guess that's really the only thing giving me pause about PN's reading. As
> soon as he moves from noting something about the structure of a given
> sentence to comparing two sentences and noting a 'connection,' that is an
> interpretation. I agree that there is nothing 'wrong' with the methodology,
> and it gives rise to an interesting reading, but to say it is not
> interpreting is just not accurate. Noting similarities and reading those as
> connections is interpreting.

Another issue I had with Paul's "analysis" of the way Pynchon uses the term
"fascism" was the way he chose to track only the repetitions, and ignored
synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy etc, which are all equally important in
deconstructing how the particular piece of text "works"; they are all
aspects of lexical cohesion, which is the analytical approach he was taking.
Just tracking the repetitions resulted in lots of omissions and left a
somewhat superficial impression, both of how the text "works" and what it
"means" (which I still don't think can be so easily separated or put into a
lock-step sequence).

But I agree that there is lots which has been interesting, and I agree with
his general approach to text as text, rather than setting up arbitrary
oppositions between "fact" and "fiction", "poetry" and "prose", or whatever.
All text can be analysed in terms of how it "works", and it can be
interpreted in terms of what it "means". A satiric poem, one of Pope's, for
example, can serve precisely the same purpose and social function as a
political editorial. Pynchon's Foreword can legitimately be addressed from
any number of angles, as I noted before. Thinking about in terms of the
conventions of writing a Foreword to a novel is certainly a valid approach,
but it's only one possible approach among many.

best