sorta np: Stone Junction

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

recently acquired and read Stone Junction

without getting into anything but the most generalized spoilers (except to say there's an unfortunate smelting accident), I was trying to figure out the significance of the blurb or what Pynchon might have seen in the book.  

there's a functioning and very active subculture or Counterforce at work, and we witness its interaction with the 60s and antiwar movement.

there's a government that is pictured as rather inhuman, and the Counterforce (whose members oversee the bildungsroman part of the protagonist's education) want to defuse some of the destructiveness of the government

the Counterforce offers him a series of mentors to interact with and learn from, developing him to a person who can use real magic in their cause

after he does so, however, he doesn't stay with their program but develops further along the lines of his magic

a-and his absorption into his magic seems to even trump romance...

I'm reminded of "Dance the Eagle to Sleep" by Marge Piercy in 1970, another P blurb subject -- very critical of the radical left: characters whose consciences won't let them ignore injustices and join the current Establishment end up recreating injustice in their own Establishment
-- they link up with Ghost Dancing, a magical tradition born out of despair; 
feign (and feel) invulnerability until the Establishment zeroes in on them...

even more Stone Junction reminds me of the old Jefferson Starship lyric
"at first I was iridescent
then I became transparent
finally, I was absent"

in Stone Junction, the Counterforce includes a richer tradition and boasts much more diversity.  Its leaders are much more thoughtful, self-doubting, aware of pitfalls.  And yet, the kid eventually has to leave them behind.

hmmm; and this is what P calls a "necessary journey"