VLVL (6) Pynchon's parables

[jbor]

on 2/10/03 7:02 PM, Mike Weaver at mikeweaver at gn.apc.org wrote:

> 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.

These aren't the only two possibilities, of course. I think that Pynchon's
texts, including _Vineland_, resist such partisanship and simplistic
either/ors. They satirise and repudiate the myth-making which goes on in all
spheres of human enterprise, including politics, and particularly the sort
of "us" versus "them" rhetoric which ideologues like Mike are so fond of.

How ironic that, in a novel which he's brandishing as a shining manifesto
and celebration of "left" politics in the U.S., he can't find even one
example of an achievement of note, let alone a "victory". And not one cite
from the text where "compromise" is condoned, or where it's differentiated
from "betrayal", where "active" and "passive" agency are defined and
demarcated as he'd like these to be. Just more of the same polemical
sophistries and generalisations, along with the standard attempt to
misrepresent and demonise dissenting viewpoints.

The novel ends, history seemingly replaying itself in a loop, with the
daughter and heir of this glorious American "left" heritage lying awake as
the midnight fast approaches, calling out for the "fascist" patriarch to
come back and claim her as his own: "Come on, come in. I don't care. Take me
anyplace you want." Funny? Mild criticism? Yeah, right.

And that sit-com style happy ending, with Desmond the dog, "spit and image
of his grandmother, Chloe", and his miraculous return, is no more than
another tawdry repeat on the Tube.

best