ATD SPOILER p. 95

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I go more with the suicide bomber interpretation.  See if you don't agree after you've read further.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Andrew Pollock <ahpollock at gmail.com>

>
>In context, this passage seemed much less (if at all) about suicide
>bombers and much more about adolescent daredevils/malcontents.  I
>agree that 9/11 and the murkiness of political terrorism seems very
>prevalent in this first section (which is all I've read), but if it's
>present in this scene it seems more present as the ghost not of
>politics, but of attraction to violence period.  In other words, young
>Traverse is only in danger of being a suicide bomber because he's
>young, dumb and full of cum...which implies a question about the
>purity of motive for self-identified ideologues, a notion borne out in
>the other major bombing set-piece in this section.
>
>Andrew
>
>
>"Subject: ATD SPOILER p. 95
>
>"a radius of annhilation that, if it could not include
>the ones who deserved it, might as well include
>himself" [95]
>
>...hair-raising to see Pynchon put the suicide
>bomber/terrorists back in the US where they also have
>a home; the effect also to make them (the suicide
>bombers over there somewhere - Afghanistan, Iraq,
>etc.) a bit less foreign, an to make ourselves, good
>US citizens, appear foreign to ourselves.
>
>September 11, 2001 and its consequences seem obvious
>on this novel, at least in these first 95 pages."