VLVL Rex and the BLGVN

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 9:57 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL Rex and the BLGVN


> >> Rex's "Southeast Asian studies", the proximity and interconnections
> > between
> >> Vietnamese and Cambodian history in the period, and Rex's documented
> > "hopes"
> >> (207-8), legitimately bring the Khmer Rouge into the picture as part of
> > "the
> >> historical depth the novel offers" (Thoreen). In my book, anyway.
> > Whichever,
> >> it's certainly clear that Pynchon is no apologist for Ho Chi Minh. And
nor
> >> for Pol Pot either, I'd wager.
>
> otto
> > The narrator calls Rex's "Southeast Asian studies" an indoctrination "in
the
> > governments' version of the war in Vietnam,"
>
> This is incorrect. Rex's studies are one thing, and his being
indoctrinated
> is another. I do agree that Rex has come to see that the government's
> version of the war is a false one, but it's because of his studies that he
> recognises this.
>

"(...) Rex Snuvvle, a graduate student in the Southeast Asian Studies
Department, who while being indoctrinated in the governments' version of the
war in Vietnam had, despite his own best efforts, been at last as unable to
avoid
the truth as, once knowing it, to speak it, out of what he easily admitted
was fear of reprisal.  In his increasingly deeper studies he had become
obsessed with the
fate of the Bolshevik Leninist Group of Vietnam (...)."

This is how it is in my book. How it's in yours?

> > but nevertheless Rex has been
> > able to tell the propaganda from the truth. But unluckily only on one
side
> > of the equation. His obsession "with the fate of the Bolshevik Leninist
> > Group of Vietnam" (note: of Vietnam, not Cambodia, at least in my book)
> > "left" of Uncle Ho seems to me a comment on the many different ML-sects
in
> > the seventies,
>
> I haven't questioned the fact that the BLGVN were sent to Vietnam. The
> passage at 208.3-7 doesn't specify Vietnam, however. And you might also
care
> to note that the text does specify that the BLGVN were active "up till
1953"
> only. Pynchon here is referring back to the sad history of the Fourth
> International, whose leaders tried to instigate a process of
> "self-liquidationism" leading to its breakdown in 1951-3. Back in January
I
> did some research on the collapse of the Fourth International, which is in
> the archives. (And NB how, according to Pynchon's narrator, the Fourth
> International, like Ho Chi Minh, "sold out" the BLGVN -- 207.33.) This
> specific historical reference stands alongside similar references to the
> failures of those other "left" movements in the C. 20th -- the IWW, the
> Hollywood unions and the 60s counterculture -- which are a continuing
> pattern within and prominent historical sub-text of Pynchon's novel.
>
> > pointing to the fact that the communist world hardly wasn't a
> > united empire threatening the free world at that time.
>

Yes, and all this challenges the "governments' version of the war in
Vietnam," the domino-theory etc.

> ***
>
> > Pynchon is certainly no apologist for any human rights violations that
> > certainly have happened under Ho Chi Minh too. But he surely doesn't
think
> > of him as the "enemy."
>
> I have no idea what the "enemy" nonsense you've been carrying on about is.
I
> suspect it has something to do with the reference to Vato and Blood
helping
> the Vietcong during the war, the Vietcong being the nominal enemy of Vato
&
> Blood and the rest of the American troops at that time, and the
insinuation
> in the text that the information V & B provided resulted in a VC attack on
> their base, which V & B managed to avoid (45). If I recall correctly one
of
> your arguments during the discussion of that section of the text was that
> Vietnamese refugees are liars.
>
> best

You've chosen the word enemy, it's nowhere in the text.

I have no idea where the nonsense "Pynchon is certainly no apologist for..."
comes from.

Please don't change my words if you refer to older discussions.

Otto