GR and Nixon

[Malignd]

Without going back and weeding through all your
(Otto's) quotes quoting my quotes quoting your
quotes-- 

The general point I was making is one in pretty
consistent disagreement with the way you discuss GR
and, from that, the way I presume you read GR, which
is to draw conclusions about what the novel “says,”
then argue from those conclusions as if they were
Pynchon’s, rather than your own.

GR, as do all novels, to lesser and greater degrees,
draws from the world outside its covers.  But to infer
Pynchon’s politics from what appears within the book
is naive and, critically, irresponsible.  That’s true
of any novel (and any novelist), but particularly in
the case of one as endlessly ambiguous as GR.  All
that can reasonably be inferred about Pynchon’s state
of mind is that he intended fictional excellence to
the extent he was capable.  On that basis, any
“ideas,” political or otherwise, should be considered
suspect so far as being attributable to Pynchon
personally or in serving any purpose (e.g., teaching)
other than fictional, esthetic ones.  Such is what I
was referring to with Pynchon’s use of paranoia.  The
creeping, paranoid idea that everything connects is a
powerful unifying device within the novel,
particularly within Slothrop’s head.  To take from
that the idea that this is indeed how the world works
is one the merits of which are debatable:  maybe
correct, maybe not.  But to assert that Pynchon is
making that claim is baseless.  Similarly, referring,
e.g., to GR as a “book of revelation” (bizarre, I
think, but, in any case) describes your response to
the book, not the book itself.  To then, on that basis
--as if this notion were fact -- extend your argument
by drawing on GR’s similarity to the Koran or the
Bible, makes an already shaky argument in great
measure more so. 

(Speaking of paranoia, you wrote:  “Either everything
is connected (paranoia, religious madness) or nothing
is connected (modernist absurdity).” This
pronouncement is obviously fallacious.  Were it not,
the statement “some things are connected, some are
not” would be in all cases untrue.)
 
You wrote --

<<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.>>

--and offered the following quote --

"Country for miles around gone to necropolis. (.) The
money seeping its way out through stock portfolios
more intricate than any genealogy: 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."

--which one might argue, given the references to
“American truths,” is an example of Pynchon’s own
opinions, the ideas portrayed his own.  But are they? 
Does Pynchon actually, unequivocally believe that the
paper industry is a national blight, that the
necessary use of timber to create paper is in all
cases a Faustian bargain peddled to rubes in the
language of capitalism, and slowing turning America
into a necropolis?  At face value, as an idea, its
laughable.  (Do you believe Pynchon himself wipes his
butt with sand or buys groceries with cowries?  That
he’s in rebellion against the very medium by which he
earns his living?  (Of course, he might and might be
and these lines are indeed his literal ideas, but I
certainly don’t know, in either case, nor do you.)) 
In context, however, and dressed in Pynchon’s prose,
the passage is moving and powerful.  One might
reasonably infer he intended the power of the prose,
that that wasn’t accidental, and meant to frame
Slothrop’s Puritan background in a way that serves the
purposes of the novel, but no more than that.

Similarly, you write:

<<Yes, as it [that the world wasn't run (and ruined)
by governments but trusts and cartels] is 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.>>

This isn’t a statement of fact; it’s hyperbole.  To
some, perhaps, terse and punchy but, offered as fact,
dismissible.




		
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