Boomer myopia

[Monte Davis]

I've probably read more reviews (new and old) of Pynchon books in the last
month or two than in all the decades before, and one recurring pattern has
jumped out at me: an identification of P's anti-authoritarian streak with
that big cloudy pop-historical-cultural construct labeled "the 1960s." The
canonical form for AtD is something like "Approaching 70, Pynchon has lost
none of his 1960s countercultural misgivings about power and those who wield
it
" -- followed by the reviewer's personal take on whether that is (a)
still inspiring and unsettling, or (b) dated and tiresome.  

I find this parochial, myopic, and increasingly annoying -- not just as
review fodder, but as it creeps into more ambitious readings. Thereare two
straightforward conclusions to be drawn about a writer who gives us the
Egyptians and Florentines in V, Jesus Arrabal and the Trystero/T&T history
in CoL49, the Argentines and Kirghiz and witches in GR, the alternate
Americas and Enlightenments that might have been in M&D, and the
[meta-spoiler alert] an****ists in AtD:

(1) P's concerns with power and freedom stretch over centuries and
continents, and address civilization and its discontents in the broadest
sense

(2) To the extent that his personal history is relevant, they were already
evident in the short stories, and well developed as V. took shape in the
late 1950s.

I have a half-developed notion that the *least* interesting and successful
aspects of Vineland are part and parcel of its focus on the 1960s and their
aftermath. I believe that the mental  grooves (ruts) worn by a generation of
Boomer navel-gazing (weren't we wild and crazy? Weren't we about to change
the world? Where did it all go wrong?) were already so deep by 1990 that P.
had trouble climbing out of them enough to impose his own vision. And
they've only gotten deeper since then.

So
 as you've all been kind enough to designate me Supreme Autocrat, I
declare an indefinite ban on interpretive and evaluative statements linking
Pynchon and the 1960s. By and large, when offered by those currently aged 40
to 60, they yield less of interest about the writing than about "how old I
was when I discovered Pynchon". When offered by those of any age, they yield
less about the writing than about "how I cram Pynchon into the most clichéd,
give-it-a-$@#^&-rest cultural-historical discourse of the last two
generations."


Monte "not talkin' 'bout my generation" Davis
monte.davis at verizon.net


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20061120/f6b650c6/attachment.html>