Webb Traverse

[Tore Rye Andersen]

Laura:

>What I wonder is, did TRP mean Webb's death to be so central to the story, 
>or did it become that because of the laconic, reader-friendly writing style 
>of the Western episodes?  Any thoughts on this, anyone?

One of the reasons why Webb's death is so important to AtD is probably that 
it occurs at the juncture of the personal and the political, of Family and 
History. In his first couple-three novels Pynchon wasn't really too 
interested in the personal or in families: When Benny Profane goes to visit 
his mother in V., she's not at home, and Slothrop's parents in GR are 
threatening forces rather than sources of comfort (there is both a Mother 
Conspiracy and a Father Conspiracy in GR, for instance - see p. 505 and 
679).

In his early novels, Pynchon was mostly interested in the instrumental ties 
of society and history, but since Vineland (coinciding roughly with his own 
fatherhood) he's been equally interested in the intimate ties of blood. In 
Vineland, M&D, and AtD, the intimate system of the family is set forth as 
some sort of human counter-system to the inhuman System - a fragile 
counter-system, which is vulnerable to personal betrayal and abandonment 
(cf. Frenesi, Webb, Lake, Stray, etc.), and which is often equally 
vulnerable to the surrounding historical events, but nevertheless a benign 
counter-system/counterforce.

Pynchon's interest in the personal/family hasn't replaced his interest in 
History and the political, but it has supplemented it in interesting ways. 
The two spheres aren't separate, by any means. Pynchon's latest novels (more 
than e.g. Lot 49 and GR) lay bare some of the many feedback-loops between 
the personal and the political: We are shaped by History, but we also help 
to shape History. Webb's death can partly be blamed on History (the struggle 
between the plutes and the workers), but it is also partly the result of 
Webb's personal choice to abandon his family in favour of idealistic 
bomb-throwing. At the intersection point between Family and History, Webb 
faces mostly towards History, but his death has vast ramifications for the 
family he's turned his back to (and their personal quest for vengeance in 
turn has certain historical ramifications). The personal and the political 
have gradually emerged as key interests in Pynchon's work, and Webb's death 
takes place just where they intersect.

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