VLVL "betrayal, cowardice, destructiveness, and lying" (81)

[jbor]

>>> when
>>> McCarthyism and anti-communist witch-hunts were still going on in the
>>> USA.
>>> For a writer like him enough reason to be a little shy I'd say.
>> 
>> I'm not sure that his choice (and he wasn't in the spotlight until _V._
>> was
>> published in 1963) had anything to do with McCarthyism and the
>> anti-communist witchhunts of the '50s, and these certainly haven't had any
>> bearing on why he has decided to maintain his avoidance over the next four
>> decades.

otto
> Where do you get that certainty from? As "Vineland" clearly shows Pynchon
> sees a continuity from the 50's witchhunts to the 60's repression and the
> anti-drug war. He may have reasons we can't even speculate about.
> 
> "The personnel changed, the Repression went on, growing wider, deeper, and
> less visible, regardless of the names in power (...)." (72)
> 
> "(...) Troopers evicted the members of a commune in Texas, beating the boys
> with slapjack, grabbing handcuffed girls by the pussy, smacking little kids
> around, and killing the stock (...)." (199)
> 
> "You're up against the True Faith here, some heavy dudes, talking crusades,
> retribution, closed ideological minds passing on  the Christian Capitalist
> Faith intact, mentor to protégé, generation to generation, living inside
> their power, convinced they're immune to all the history the rest of us have
> to suffer." (232)

None of these quotations have anything to do with McCarthyism and the
anti-communist witchhunts of the 1950s, let alone do they justify your claim
that Pynchon's avoidance of publicity and the media in the 1960s and beyond
is due to a fear of McCarthyism and anti-communist witchhunts.

There are episodes in _Vineland_ which specifically address the 1950s and
the Hollywood blacklists, of course, but they paint a very different picture
from the one you're fabricating.

best