AtD and 9/11 and Irony

[Tim Strzechowski]

Here's the beginning of the quotation:

"With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of 
unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and 
evil intent in high places."

Now the sentence in question:

"No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."


How can anyone argue that this *isn't* ironic?  Of *course* reference is 
being made to the present day.  Someone here likened that statement to 
Twain's "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative ... persons 
attempting to find a moral ... persons attempting to find a plot" at the 
beginning of _Huck Finn_.  The Pynchon statement is the very essence of 
irony, given the sentence which preceeds it.

Which doesn't surprise me.  I seem to recall an amusing reference to "not 
inhaling" in M&D, which was quite timely.