TPPM Barthelme

[Otto]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <monroe at mpm.edu>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 1:31 AM
Subject: TPPM Barthelme


> Pynchon, Thomas.  "Introduction."  The Writings of Don B.
>    New York: Random House, 1992.
>
> http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_barthelme.html
>
> http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/barthelme.html
>
>
> Donald Barthleme (1939-1981)
>

  A little correction: April 7, 1931 - July 23, 1989

"Trying to describe Barthelme's politics is as dodgy as trying to label his
work, but Watergate sure did get him revved up. Nixon by then had already
mutated into a desperate and impersonal force, no longer your traditionally
human-type President, but now some faceless subgod of folly. Barthelme,
perhaps as a species of anarchist curse, just calls him "the President." The
rage behind it, provoked by the ongoing spectacle of national politics in
the U.S. as presided over by anybody, is natural enough if you look at the
regimes Barthelme happened to be working under. Among many sad consequences
of his passing is that we won't know what he might have done with Bush as a
subject, although "Kissing the President," in its consideration of Reagan,
may give off premonitory hints."
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_barthelme.html

"Certain things about the new President are not clear. I can't make out what
he is thinking. When he has finished speaking I can never remember what he
has said."
D.B.: "The President," ("Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts," 1968)