GR and Nixon

[Otto]

> <<But to what purpose does Pynchon portrait corporate
> America that way?>>
>
> He's not "portraying" corporate America.

What is portrayed then in GR? The effects of Puritan capitalism of American
origin on the world from a point of view that is non-Marxian but includes
the socialist idea in its criticism.

"Country for miles around gone to necropolis. (.) The money seeping its way
out through stock portfolios more intricate than any geneology: what stayed
home in Berkshire went into timberland whose diminishing green reaches were
converted acres at a clip into paper-toilet paper, banknote stock,
newsprint-a medium or ground for shit, money and the Word. (.) the three
American truths, powering the American mobility, claimed the Slothrops,
clasped them for good to the country's fate. (.) Interest from various
numbered trusts was still turned, by family banks down in Boston every
second or third generation, back into yet another trust, in long
rallentando, in infinite series just perceptible, term by term, dying . but
never quite to the zero."
(Chap. 4, 27-28)

"His Other Kingdom is never directly described, but is potent and malign."
(Fowler, p. 11)

> He's using contextually,

In which context? What is the context of GR, "shit, money and the Word.
(...) the three American truths" (ibid)?

> for fictional purposes,

What are these purposes, just saying "fictional purposes" says nothing.

> something that went on during World War II,

Did it only happen in WW II?

> the time in which the novel takes place.

Given the end of the novel and all the flashbacks within the text this is
highly debatable.

> It's worth reminding yourself that
> Pynchon specifically and effectively uses the idea and
> mood of paranoia to drive the book;

Well, I wrote a website about that long ago:
http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/paranoid.htm

Either everything is connected (paranoia, religious madness) or nothing is
connected (modernist absurdity). Paranoia is one of the driving forces of
Puritanism, which has been the driving force of modern capitalism. Pynchon
is much more intelligent than any of his readers who might still believe
that praying helps. Is there a benevolent entity waiting for us after death
or not? GR doesn't say yes or no, but gives the answer that if there's such
an entity it is malevolent, not the good Lord Paul M. is praying to.

> i.e., it's a
> fictional device and GR is a novel.

As any other book of revelation (Bible, Koran etc.) is fiction. If more
people had read the novel (or Rushdie's "Verses") and learned this lesson
the world surely wouldn't look like like it looks today.

>
> <<Was it widespread knowledge in 1973 that the world
> wasn't run (and ruined) by governments but trusts and
> cartels?>>
>
> As it is now, you mean?
>

Yes, as it it now common knowledge. Even the biggest muggle today knows that
our constitutions aren't worth much more than the paper they're written on,
fictions.

> See Fowler's, under "begging
> the question."
>

If you give me a page number as it is the proper way of discussing
literature I can look it up.

> As to knowledge of attempts by allied corporations to
> maintain ties with their German counterparts, who
> knows?

To challenge the common belief that there has been a clearly "good" (Allies)
and "bad" (Axis) side in that war for example.

> It was there to be learned of.  Despite
> Millison's insistence that no one knew such a thing
> before Pynchon told the world,

Sorry, but you might understand that I don't interfere in the
"Millison-MalignD-P-List Wars" anymore.

> Sasuly's book came out
> in 1947.  A book by Anthony Sampson called The
> Sovereign State of ITT -- which came out the same year
> as GR and was on the bestseller list -- talks about it
> as well.
>

 So something critical about trusts was in the air in the late sixties and
early seventies. I agree.

> One has reason to doubt that the situation being
> referenced in a book as famously unread as GR led to
> any mass dropping of scales from eyes.
>
>

Nobody claimed that. This has nothing to do with GR especially;
Pynchon as an author of fiction was critical about certain things
others from the Left were critical of too, without writing a novel
on it/or writing metaphorically about that problem.

Otto