More on the blurb brouhaha

[Humberto Torofuerte]

Some critics considered Vineland a political novel...a lamentation of sorts
over Reagan's Amerika ...let the reader decide:

"But what is perhaps most interesting, finally, about [Vineland] is what is
different about it. What is interesting is the willingness with which he
addresses, directly, the political development of the United States, and the
slow (but not total) steamrollering of a radical tradition many generations
and decades older than flower power. There is a marvelously telling moment
when Brock Vond's brainchild, his school for subversion in which lefties are
re-educated and turned into tools of the state, is closed down because in
Reagan's America the young think like that to begin with, they don't need
re-education."

>From Salman Rushdie's NTY review, courtesy the Quail:

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

And remember that nice Emerson quote at the end of the book:

"Secret retributions are always restoring the level, when disturbed, of the
Divine justice. It is impossible to tilt the beam. All the tyrants and
proprietors and monopolists of the world in vain set their shoulders to
heave the bar. Settles for evermore the ponderous equator to its line, and
man and mote and star and sun must range with it, or be pulverized by the
recoil."

Still I think libertarians and of course anyone generally distrustful of
goverments and big business can find solace in Pynchon's works.

On 7/26/06, Ghetta Life <ghetta_outta at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Debates about how "lefty" Pynchon is are truly useless.  His novels are
> not
> political tracts, thank God.  If I were to guess, I'd say he's not a
> "conservative"  (He's obviously to smart for that).
>
> Pynchon does toy with politcal messages, such as the tree telling Slothrup
> to take the carburator out of the next tractor he sees at a site of tree
> harvesting (very loose paraphrase).  And there are many other
> examples.  But
> they are always subsevient to the bigger concerns of his novels.
>
> These debates usually emerge when someone on this list begins with
> "Pynchon
> is obviously saying..."  Thank God Pynchon is never obviously saying
> anything.
>
> Ghetta
>
> >From: "John Carvill" <JCarvill at algsoftware.com>
> >
> > > btw. is TPR still a lefty these days? is there much evidence for this
> >(apart from Vineland)?
> >
> >Heh heh. Well I've always felt there's a strong left-leaning political
> >current running through Pynchon's  work. Many here on this very list have
> >strongly disagreed. I'll leave it at that.
> >
>
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