VL to SL: Pynchon's Self-Characterization

[jbor]

on 12/4/04 2:29 PM, Terrance wrote:

>>>> 2) The sentence about values is an endorsement of what the Beats stood for;
>>>> it's *not* an endorsement of "conservatism", however that might be defined.
>>>> (I.e., he is saying that the Beat movement was "a sane and decent
>>>> affirmation of what *we all want to believe about* American values"; my
>>>> emph.)
>>> 
>>> The Beats stood for conservative American values or what we all want to
>>> believe about America.
>> 
>> Then what did the "modernist tradition" and the college academics stand for,
>> and why were Pynchon's loyalties, and those of the other "post-Beats" (who
>> dat? Fariña?), divided between the two?
>> 
>> I agree that in writing "what we all want to believe about American values"
>> he's preaching to the choir, though there does indeed to be some confusion
>> surrounding precisely which choir that is.
> 
> Again, we need to toss out these categories because we can't talk about
> the Beats like this.

But they're the categories Pynchon sets up and it's the way *he's* talking
about the Beats. He refers to "Kerouac and the Beat writers" (6-7). He's
talking about his "divided" loyalties, about ultimately seeing "deeper" into
the "Beat sensibility" as a "sane and decent affirmation" of "American
values", about the initial years of the "hippie resurgence" being a
"vindication". I don't accept that the Beat "values" he's referring to are
consistent with "conservative" ones; if they are, then why were his
"loyalties divided" between what he was reading and "the more established
modernist tradition we were being exposed to in college"? The "Beat
sensibility" was an anti-Establishment one, surely?

> Keruoac or Butowski. Since P mentions the former we
> should do well to remember that Jack was a conservative Catholic
> American patriot who supported the war in Vietnam.

I can't see how this has anything to do with the _SL_ Intro, or Pynchon's
own attitude towards the Vietnam War.

best