VLVL (6) Pynchon's parables
Mike Weaver
mikeweaver at gn.apc.org
Mon Oct 6 05:53:10 CDT 2003
Rob, I won't bore the rest of the crew with more extracts - anyone who's
bothered can look.
Your latest response is more cut and shuffle to suit your argument.
You keep accusing me of bringing my own ideas to the discussion. I was
under the impression that criticism could involve bringing one's own ideas
in to interrogate the text. You certainly do, yours aren't organised
ideologically as such, but you have been making moral assumptions/value
judgements which cannot be found in the text without shuffling to suit your
purpose, and your tone, with regard to the hippies, student radicals and
their forebears, has consistently been one of disapproval, treating them as
losers who helped bring about the calamities they claimed to fight against.
While we can agree that P criticises the delusions and cop outs of the
radical movements, we differ in that I am one of a number of people on this
list who feel he does so with respect and appreciation of their hopes and
strivings. IMO Vineland's undertone is 'if at first you don't succeed, try
try again', not an assertion that the whole project is a failure totally
compromised by its Fatal Flaw.
Yea I've enjoyed debating with you, but statements such as
>I can see why you selected particular passages and references in this
>particular chapter of this
> particular book to try to yoke Pynchon and his work to your party line.
are a bit weak coming from someone who has to regularly reshuffle the text
to support their own assertions.
I was another hippie dreamer when I started reading Pynchon. When I later
began to develop my particular political perceptions his way of seeing was
a huge part of the mix. My 'party line' is part Pynchonian - the yoke's on
you not him....
Cheers
Mike
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