Pynchon and fascism

[Paul Nightingale]

>From Terrance:

> 
> Pynchon has written and published a Foreword to Orwell's novel _1984_
> 
> It is a short introductory piece to a book. It is like a Preface and
an
> Introduction, but one not composed by the author but by someone else.
> 

I'm looking, as I write, at the cover of the Plume paperback. It's
arguable that Pynchon's name ("With a new foreword by ...") is more
prominent (white against a black background) than Orwell's (a dirty
cream against maroon). Top edge of the cover, the same black band with a
white-print heading: "Centennial Edition" ... which is juxtaposed to the
Pynchon-reference along the bottom edge. Indeed "new foreword" implies
old novel. In the centre, the main titles. A novel. Nineteen
Eighty-Four. By George Orwell. Author of Animal Farm.

Quite literally, Orwell's name, as it appears on the cover, is
underwritten by "author of Animal Farm". Hence Animal Farm, as a
signifier, guarantees the status of Orwell as the author of an old novel
with a new foreword (by whatsisname). Where is 1984 (or, as a
letter-writer to the Guardian pointed out, Nineteen Eighty-Four) in any
of this?

I think of the way trailers introduce a film with a tightly-edited
selection of highlights (and therefore re-edit or rewrite the film after
the event but in anticipation).

Or the way a speaker at a public gathering announces the guest speaker.
By implication we're all there for the guest, unless we came in off the
street to avoid the snow blizzard and found out the booze was free. But
the guest still has to be introduced, framed by the social gathering we
attend.

There's a bit of both in the Foreword. But the reader has to opt for
reading the Foreword first. As I said before, there's no reason to
suppose they'll do so; and if they do, what that reading will do to
enlighten their reading of the novel. P's writing is an intervention,
but what the significance of this might be remains to be seen. Simply to
say it's some kind of hors d'oeuvre possibly doesn't do it justice.

> Is it a fiction? If all writing is fiction how can it be otherwise?
> What kind of fiction is it? Is it prose with some poetry mixed in?

Again, this juxtaposition of poetry to prose is problematic. When Paul M
introduced it, he might have meant to differentiate A against B. However
his usage implies a hierarchy, poetry being whatever can bye signed by
Pynchon-as-author. So when we're talking about different kinds of
fiction, do we mean to put them into some kind of rank order? I would
say not.

> The
> reason I'm asking these questions is not because I don't understand
how
> the boundary of fact and fiction may be collapsed or suspended, but
> because it's a useful question to ask if we want to analyze what
Pynchon
> wrote.

I find it encouraging that, after more than a month, we're still trying
to work out how to read this short (?) text. An awful lot we haven't
even started to address yet.

>  What kind of fiction is the Foreword? Paul N. says it's not the
> same as M&D, but he goes on to compare Churchill as character with
> Washington as character. Is the Foreword postmodernist fiction? What?

Actually, what I wrote was: "'Churchill' becomes a fictional character;
one Winston has the same status, in the text, as the other." You only
infer that "the same status as" = "compare".

Postmodernist fiction? Given the theoretical assumptions (ie the
postmodernist zeitgeist, which in itself is admittedly disputable) that
inspire the dissolution of fact/fiction boundaries, it's possible that
"postmodernist fiction" might be tautological and therefore meaningless.
I agree we need something. At the moment we're still taking in old
money.