Pynchon Japan Playboy

[jbor]

> So because someone can't make sense of it means that it doesn't *have*
> meaning?
> 
> Interesting.

I thought the argument was that it was an interview. Usually when you
interview someone (and again, who was the interviewer?) you have an
opportunity to ask them to clarify their meaning if what they say doesn't
seem to make sense. That obviously didn't happen here. It's the fact that
*no-one* (not "someone") has been able to make head nor tail of either
translated version of the comment that is the proof of the pudding.

Feel free to continue to disagree, but perhaps some textual support might
help your position.

best

>>>> "America always looks for an enemy. The country cannot feel O.K. without
>>>> it. It has labeled Bin Laden as the bad guy who commanded the terrorist
>>>> attacks from behind the scenes, only because we couldn't feel O.K. unless
>>>> we
>>>> made him. But I think Bin Laden is just somebody's rodeo clown."
>>>> 
>>> For those who insist that Pynchon said it, they might consider that the
>>> above doesn't make any sense.   A rodeo clown is someone who diverts the
>>> bull from a fallen rider, not a strawman bad guy.
>> 
>> It could make SOME sense if we were to think of public attention as the bull
>> and the cowboy as the "truth" the bull seeks, but the clown as the diversion
>> thrown in to divert public attention...
> 
> The fact that no-one has yet been able to offer a coherent meaning basically
> proves MalignD's point, doesn't it -- i.e. that it doesn't make any sense.

>