ATD SPOILER p. 95

[Scott Badger]

Back in my childhood neck of the woods, explosives were a favorite, and 
particularly active, area of research...not having a familial dynamite 
connection, nor even commercially available fire-works, we "mined" our 
material from Estes model-rocket engines and Dad's shotgun shells...

No other motive than the bang.

Scott

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Pollock" <ahpollock at gmail.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>; <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: ATD SPOILER p. 95


> 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."
>