Pynchon and fascism

[jbor]

on 31/5/03 11:59 PM, Paul Nightingale wrote:

> One asks what it means to juxtapose
> the signifier "Churchill" to the signifier "fascist".

To be more precise, the signifier is "Churchill's war cabinet", and the
juxtaposition between it and the other signifier, "a fascist regime", is
couched as a very weak modality ("could be argued", "had behaved no
differently than"). Tracking the connection of these signifiers into the
next paragraph we see that the original signifier, "Churchill's war
cabinet", was operating metonymically within the ongoing discussion of the
British Labour Party in this section of the Foreword. The elaboration in the
second paragraph reveals that it is the Labour Party's "acquiescence to, and
participation in, a repressive Tory-led government", and Orwell's attitude
to this, which was the primary context. Thus, "Churchill's war cabinet"
stands in a synonymic relationship to the "British Labour Party", as does "a
fascist regime" with "a repressive, Tory-led government." Modality is absent
from the reiteration, because it is a far less exaggerated, controversial,
inflammatory assertion than the one which has come before.

Your "analysis" leads one to conclude - or to ask the question at least -
that Orwell thought of or wrote of Churchill as a fascist. He didn't, and
it's not what Pynchon is addressing here. Orwell's criticisms were directed
towards the British Labour Party, which is the topic Pynchon has focused on
throughout the section of text. (Note that "Orwell's critique of England's
official Left" is placed in theme position in the second paragraph on p. x.
That _The Guardian_ chose to erase this paragraph entirely in its
bowdlerised edit of the Foreword, and thus to obscure the lexical cohesion
of this section of Pynchon's text, is itself significant.)

best