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

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 10:24 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL "betrayal, cowardice, destructiveness, and lying" (81)


> otto
> > Why do you leave out the third quote that shows the historical dimension
> > from the Pilgrim Fathers to the Bush-dynasty.
> >
> > "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)
> >
> > Are you avoiding specific pieces of the text? McCarthyism was based
> > precisely on this ideology.
>
> I don't think Rex Snuvvle is talking about McCarthyism especially -- his
> perspective is emphatically internationalistic, and he's more interested
in
> the looming Évenements in Paris and the war and ideological struggles in
> Indo-China. And I don't think you can infer that the character is simply a
> mouthpiece for his author's opinions on this issue or any other, or that
> this quotation in any way supports your original argument that Pynchon has
> avoided making public appearances because he is fearful of McCarthyism and
> anti-communist witchhunts.
>
> best
>

Rex is talking about the WASP's who rule the USA and not only about the
Vietnam-quagmire in the quote. I have offered the ongoing repression only as
another possibility.

Of course not every character is a mouthpiece of the author, but the
critique of the "closed ideological minds" of the "Christian Capitalist
Faith" is very much in accordance to what he wrote about the Puritans in GR
and the way he presents the early Americans in M&D.

Otto