VLVL Is it OK to be a misoneist?

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 2004-03-07 at 01:26, jbor wrote:
> on 7/3/04 4:19 PM, Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> >> Anyway, back to the text. Though the fact that the '60s "Youth Movement"
> >> *was* a failed revolution is still being disputed -- bizarre as that may
> >> seem -- I don't agree that what Pynchon is up to in his depiction of its
> >> collapse in _Vineland_ is merely to egg it on and enjoy the spectacle (How
> >> does one "egg on" a revolution which has already failed?
> >
> > Because he's Pynchon.
> 
> It wasn't a "why" question, not that this is an explanation. It asked "how".

One eggs it on by making up a story about it. He could have just ignored
the whole thing. Don't see why the phrase "egging it on" is so
objectionable to you.

> 
> > And the kids don't know it's failed. They are
> > still undergraduates.
> 
> I don't understand whether you're talking about "kids" today or the "kids"
> in the novel. The characters in the novel aren't undergraduates at all,


The real kids. The Mark Rudds. Mark looks back today in amazement at the
whole thing. He does regret his basic criticisms of society. Only some
of the more extreme activities.

Like everyone else I flit back and forth between the real and fictional.

>  and,
> by the time of PR3's collapse, they have all had a pretty clear
> demonstration of how the "Youth Movement" has failed.

They're not very bright.

> 
> > I thought "egg it on and enjoy the spectacle" was
> > quite aptly put. It's taking Pynchon's widely acknowledged love of the
> > underdog and then giving the screw another half turn. Look, if you're a
> > novelist you traffic in these kinds of irresponsible behaviors.
> 
> I don't agree that all novelists are motivated in the same way, and I don't
> agree that Pynchon's fiction is just fun and nonsense in the interest of
> perversity.

My view is that Pynchon is a comic writer. Dark comedy. Don't you agree
that he loves perversity. Fictional perversity. I don't know how it
falls out in his reading public at large but here on the p-list down
through the years P's  often been taken as authoritative on real world
events. All I can say is that I do not hold such a view. Just out of
curiosity does anyone else agree with me?   


>  You're certainly entitled to hold and express that opinion, just
> as anyone else is entitled to disagree with you. It's not a complaint.
> 
> >> In fact, it's
> >> the political debates, and Humphrey and the '68 Chicago Demos in particular,
> >> which are *not* depicted or even mentioned in Pynchon's text, and thus which
> >> are being seen -- rightly or wrongly -- as irrelevant to the lives of these
> >> characters.
> > 
> > I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
> 
> Only that some things are given a place of prominence in the novel where
> others aren't. I'm interested in discussing what's in the novel, regardless
> of whether Pynchon is right or wrong to have chosen to focus on some things,
> such as the collapse of the "Youth Movement", while overlooking others, such
> as Humphrey and the protests at the '68 Chicago Democratic Convention (or
> the Port Huron Statement for that matter). It's his take on the period that
> is interesting; he experienced it first hand as well. I don't see how Hubert
> Humphrey or the Manson family are relevant to the discussion, unless they're
> being cited as things he shouldn't have left out of the novel?


Writers pepper their fictional worlds with real world events. Perhaps I
misread you but but I saw an implication that Pynchon's aim was
analyzing real world events for real world application in the future. I
don't think he does that in his fiction. 


Are you saying I was wrong in commenting on Otto's comment about
Humphrey. At that point Otto is over in the real world with the real
kids. He was reacting to your comments (as he saw saw them) on the
trouble with extreme positions and actions of the left. Again, many
p-discussions flit back and forth between fiction and reality.  

> best
>