VLVL (6) Pynchon's parables

[Mike Weaver]

Rob celebrates:

> > The Ghost of Picnic Future:
>
>Yes, I like this idea. It matches up with the way that that Apocalyptic
>rocket *almost* drops on the world of the complacent reader at the end of
>_GR_, the text itself a warning, a wake-up call. "There is time ... " In
>_Vineland_ Pynchon looks back at the history of the American "left" in the
>20th C. and sees it for the failure, or series thereof, it was.

And it was Rosa Luxembourg who commented that the path to revolutionary 
success is paved with a succession of failures.

One basic interpretation of Vineland rests on the question of P's 
sympathies, ie whether he is writing from within the left or  from outside. 
We can all agree that VL looks critically at the left, where we disagree is 
whether it is in the spirit of learning from our mistakes, or is damning it 
to the dustbin.

Rob's recent assertions all rest on the same basis, not differentiating, 
between compromise and betrayal, between active and passive agency and now 
between 'failure' and a 'series thereof'.
To simply damn the American left in the 20th C. as a failure is to ignore 
all the victories along the way. That most of these were later reversed 
doesn't obliterate the effects for the individuals whose lives were 
improved, even if temporarily. That's the difference between the two 
descriptions.

Describing the left as a failure omits the fact it is a continuing struggle 
and defining it as a failure in a particular time period ignores the seeds 
sown which will germinate later, the tales and myths created which will 
inspire later generations.

I don't know US history well enough to give examples, but I'm sure they are 
there as they are here in the UK: there are multitudes of positive ways in 
which society is currently organised which grew out of the struggles of the 
left with the capitalist establishment. Ultimate victory was not achieved 
but concessions by the state were a part of re-establishing stability. 
Concessions which would not have come about without the struggle between 
left and right, and their origins are now forgotten by a depoliticised 
population.

It is impossible for us to come to any final agreement over Pynchon's 
personal politics and the sentiment which underpins Vineland, but the 
debate necessitates that we declare our sympathies. Didn't some early 
essayist  meet a state agent who said pretty much the same thing of GR?