Cyrus

[Will Layman]

I'm not saying that Pynchon isn't ciritical of German bombast (or American
bombast, for that matter).  But I think he sees the impulse toward
exclusion, suppression and dominance to be a problem no matter who happens
to be exercising it.  So, if you exercise it on behalf of the poor
preterite, you're still being bombastic.  The artists that Pynchon prizes
most avoid the false dichotomy by embracing things openly, by becoming a
synthesis rather than an antithesis (even an antithesis of something
bombastic).

Parker is a great example.  He played the blues, but he loved Stravinsky.
He played with bongoes, but he also recorded with strings.  He was a musical
sophisticate (harmonically advanced, melodically complex) but also a pure
roots player.

I'm not erring by refusing to commit to an ethical or political position ‹
I'm taking the position that Pynchon is more complex than knee-jerk support
for some simplistic "counter-culture" or folkie tradition.  VINELAND
certainly makes that point over and over again.  Bird outranks Ludwig for
TRP not because he's more preterite but because he's more open, more
inclusive, and therefore less reactionary.

-- Will

On 11/2/04 3:10 PM, "jolly" <jollyrogerx99 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Your error is the prevalent lit. crit. theoretical one of refusing to ever
> commit to an ethical or political decision: you refuse to see that  TRP does,
> implicitly or explicitly, imply there is some causal connection, however
> imperceptible, between Beethoven's German bombast and the third reich...
>  
> and I am not sure about Guthrie, and I am not such a fan of that sort of
> primitive Dylanesque folkie stuff anyways --though Pynchon did have some
> connection to that scene through his pal Farina-- but in TRP's world a Bird
> does outrank Mozart or Ludwig Von, and more closely represents some form of
> musical and aesthetic  "truth" ....and he does seem to place the absurd,
> cartoon cacaphonies of Spike Jones  in that realm of approved aesthetics as
> well;  TRP's book are all about plurality, and "everything connects," but
> there are villains, malevolence,   "bad faith", bad politics and bad
> art--whether BIlly Barf or Ludvig Von....
> 
> Do you Yahoo!?
>  Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.  www.yahoo.com <http://www.yahoo.com>


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