VLVL Rex Snuvvle

[Paul Mackin]

On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 18:03, jbor wrote:
> > 
> >>> Maybe someone that lived back in those late days of 68-69 can tell us
> >>> why P alludes to Talleyrand. Why did the SDSers invoke Talleyrand?
> > 
> > 
> > I thought it was just that one specific Talleyrand quote as it
> > ironically applied to Weed's unwillingness or inability to react to the
> > ideas issuing from the young militants.
> 
> Of course, but there's also the irony of Rex citing Talleyrand, one of the
> great political opportunists of all time. He jumped ship from Louis XVI to
> the revolutionaries, then to England, to America, back to Barras, to
> Napoleon, to the Allies in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, to the
> Bourbons, to Louis Phillippe, and then back to the church on his deathbed.
> 
> The allusion to Talleyrand invokes the French Revolutionary period and its
> aftermath, another "left" uprising that went horribly, horribly wrong, just
> like Indochinese communism did in the second half of last century. And,
> perhaps Pynchon's point, just like the '60s student rebellion (and beyond)
> in the U.S.
> 
> That Talleyrand is also referred to in Sale's book (is he?) makes Pynchon's
> reference a pointed one rather than just a random quote, imo.

Plus I'm told old Charles-Maurice was very fond of Danish.

P.