1973 Nervous Breakdown

[Paul Mackin]

On May 25, 2006, at 3:11 AM, mikebailey at speakeasy.net wrote:

>>>
>>>    Aren’t the Rockefellers secure? Haven’t they been
>>> pretty influential for three or four generations now?
>>> Don’t the oil companies control the country, its
>>> government, its corporations, institutions, etc.?
>>> Aren’t they now the establishment, as pervasive at the
>>> J.P. Morgan group was from the Civil War through World
>>> War I?
>>
>> Does anyone really imagine P's being afraid to express himself freely
>> in unencrypted  plain text out of a paranoid fear  someone is gonna
>> get him?
>>
>
> if the p-list's eponym and raison d'etre were really paranoid would  
> he have published a big book full of all the ruminations therein in  
> plain-text - and occasionally, plain-song?  doesn't it seem more  
> reasonable that an author would be groping toward answers, and  
> place many conflicting hypotheses each with supporting data amid a  
> series of big books that, taken as a whole, affirm life and  
> positive values?
>
> especially with the attitude toward history that we find in M&D  
> (that it's best approached through fiction, n'est ce pas?) and of  
> course someone whose chosen profession is fiction would utilize all  
> available techniques
>
> but yet the Charles Hollander article and its thesis shed a light  
> for me on Pynchon and in fact remind me that this is probably where  
> I got the notion to think of him in terms of Dante: the latter was  
> involved in politics and supported one faction (Guelphs,  
> Ghibellines, at this remove it's hard to remember) yet his poetry  
> took on universal themes, having worked through the mundane but  
> always with the transcendent in his sights.

By Dante's time the rival factions were the White Guelphs, to which  
Dante adhered, and the Black Guelphs. You could get tortured and  
exiled for getting caught in the cross fire.

I know some p-listers liked Charles' ideas.  I just have major  
problems with some of them is all.
>
> I could easily imagine a mind like that of the author of GR at the  
> helm of a big corporation, with great attention to detail but yet  
> the way the work on closer examination also reveals grand schemes  
> to which the parts are allegiant; with an impressive grasp of  
> tradition and yet some sparklingly original ideas - high finance's  
> loss was literature's gain.  Also, free from the endless meetings  
> and machinations that Morganish or Rockefellerish, Guelphish or  
> Ghibellinish muckety-mucks have to endure, the freedom (= time) to  
> refine his talent can't be regarded as an utter negative...(not to  
> mention the boon of avoiding the bad karma assoc with the  
> inevitable violence and chicanery involved in accumulating great  
> wealth - see Gustavus Myers, eg)
>
>  it's possible to empathize with (imputed) feelings of  
> dispossession that a young Pynchon might have felt, (and easier for  
> me personally (as a melanin-deficient male whose ancestors included  
> an equity player in Packard, which was of course gone with the wind  
> before my arrival)


They were elegant automobiles. A family friend of my youth had a big   
blue sedan. Later I was involved with a white convertible that had  
seen better days.

> in his case, than in that of, say, Toni Morrison) and I think it  
> helps to personalize the reading...although as a Constant Reader, I  
> aspire to an Olympian vantage point that neither over- nor  
> underemphasizes biography...
>
> gonna go read some more M&D...
> 3 day weekend coming up, o joy!
> happy Memorial Day, fellow p-fans,even to those who dislike M&D and  
> VL (may your judgement soften with time and perhaps a holiday  
> beverage of your choice)

And a happy three-day weekend to working p-listers.
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