Holding up a mirror...

[Tim Strzechowski]

>
> This thread of the conversation has been going on, in various forms, since
> the beginning of the reading, and I'm sure it will be with us to the end.
> I'm wondering if, to lay a sort of foundation for the next few months of
> wasted bandwidth, we can find anything that most of us can agree on about
> the book's political coordinates.
>


Excellent post, Don.  And a positive way of trying to make something
constructive and meaningful out of several days' worth of sniping.

If there is anything that this particular novel can be said to showcase in
terms of its author's growth as a writer, it is perhaps the sense of moral
ambiguity that surrounds most of the major characters.  My personal
inclination is to believe that Pynchon has drawn a sympathetic portrait of
Zoyd, despite the fact that he is (as some have pointed out) a burn-out
sell-out.  It's important to remember that P has chosen to make him the pov
focus for the first 5 chapters, thereby establishing a certain
identification with the reader (and, if nothing else, the schlemiel quality
of Zoyd makes him a sort of Everyman figure, with which most readers should
identify).  Consequently, though we (as readers) may not agree with
everything Zoyd does or says, P as author is attempting to make us
sympathetic to his pov (the closest thing I can equate this to is the
formulaic sequence of guests on a show like Springer or Morey, where the
audience meets the first guest and sympathies are drawn, and the antagonist
next guest is typically under the gun because the audience has already
alligned with guest #1).

Yet, we cannot ignore the various and sundry negatives that surround Zoyd,
which have been mentioned in previous posts!

Therefore, I would say that this novel is perhaps the most morally ambiguous
of P's works.

Agree?  Disagree?

Respectfully,

Tim