Watts article

[jbor]

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_watts.html

> there's nothing in the piece that indicates Pynchon ever set foot in Watts.

The very precise descriptions in paragraphs 8-12 (from ("Yet in the
daytime's brilliance and heat ... ") imply that Pynchon went to Watts
specifically to write this piece. If he didn't go to Watts then he's a total
phoney, of course, but in fact there's no reason to suggest that he didn't
go there for the story.

The direct quotations from Watts residents and workers also indicate that he
went there and spoke to people:

    "I decided once to ask," a kid says, "one time they told me I
    didn't meet their requirements. So I said: 'Well, what are you
    looking for? I mean, how can I train, what things do I have to
    learn so I can meet your requirements?' Know what he said? 'We
    are not obligated to tell you what our requirements are.'"
 
And when he does generalise to "you" and "they" I read the quotations as
something which someone said which expresses a more general sentiment, as
though he had been interviewing a group of people and one of them said
something with which the rest of them strongly agreed:

    "There was a time," they'll tell you, "you'd say, 'Take off the
    badge baby, and let's settle it.' I mean, he wouldn't, but you'd
    say it. But since August, man, the way I feel, hell with the
    badge -- just take off that gun."

It may also be a manouevre to preserve the anonymity of his informants. The
literary flourishes do get in the way at times I agree, particularly some of
the sarcastic attacks on white L.A culture which often are over-the-top.

Pynchon's piece has a lot more street cred -- whether it was a calculated
deception on Pynchon's part one couldn't say for sure, but Occam's Razor
would suggest that isn't the case -- than Mailer's bombast in 'The White
Negro'. I also think that what he sets out to do -- present the perspectives
of the Watts residents in an unbiased and unsensationalised way -- he does
effectively.

The article was meant to get up the noses of middle class white boys, "the
little man". It's quite astonising that it still manages to do that.

best